ON  DOGMATIC  THEOLOGY 


TYPOGRAPHIE   FIRMIN-DIDOT   ET   Cle.   —  PARIS. 


GOD  AND  MAN 

V 

LECTURES 
ON  DOGMATIC  THEOLOGY 

from  the  French 

OF    THE 

REV.   L.   LABAUCHE   S.   S 

// 

Authorised  Translation 

VOL.  I 


P.  J.  KENEDY  &  SONS 


1917 

ItM- 


NIHIL  OBSTAT 

Remigius  LAFORT,  S.  T.  D. 
Censor  Deputatus. 


IMPRIMATUR 

Joannes  Card.    FARLEY 
Arcbiepiscopus  Neo-Eboracensis. 

Neo-Eboraci,  die  30«  Decembris  1915. 


PREFACE 


It  may  be  well  here  to  touch  upon  the  master  idea  that 
guides  our  work.  Since  the  beginning  of  the  19th  century, 
Rationalists  have  set  about  attacking  Catholic  dogma  with 
altogether  new  tactics.  They  have  striven  to  show  that  our 
most  fundamental  dogmas,  at  no  matter  what  period  of  their 
history  we  consider  them,  whether  upon  their  first  appearance 
in  Holy  Writ,  or  at  the  time  of  their  development  in  Tradi- 
tion, or  at  the  time  of  their  conciliar  definition,  are  an 
altogether  human  product.  Such  criticism,  confined  for  a 
time  within  certain  intellectual  circles,  has  gradually  worked 
its  way  into  the  different  classes  of  society  and  has  given 
rise  to  that  Modernism  denounced  and  condemned  by  Pope 
Pius  X  in  the  Encyclical  Pascendi  gregis  domiriiei. 

Now,  this  is  just  the  objection  that  we  are  most  desirous 
of  combatting.  We  have  undertaken  to  show  that  Catholic 
dogma,  on  the  contrary,  at  whatever  period  of  its  history  we 
examine  it,  remains  absolutely  inexplicable  so  far  as  contin- 
gent causes  are  concerned,  and  that  it  requires  always,  now 
under  one  form,  now  under  another,  the  intervention  of  the 
Holy  Spirit. 

We  candidly  declare  that  we  have  approached  this  task 


vm  PREFACE 

in  a  profoundly  Catholic  spirit  and  with  respectful  submission 
to  the  directions  of  the  Church.  We  can,  we  must  avow, 
conceive  of  no  other  attitude  in  one  who  icould  devote  himself 
to  the  study  of  special  dogma.  To  attempt  to  restore  indi- 
vidual dogmas  in  their  historical  settings  icithout  the  gui- 
dance of  the  definitions  and  directions  of  the  Church,  were 
sheer  folly.  No  exact  account  could  be  rendered  of  them,  nor 
could  we  discover  their  harmony  and  unity.  Besides  we 
should  be  exposed  to  the  frequent  shock  of  apparent  contradic- 
tion. 

We  have,  nevertheless,  examined  most  carefully  the  nu- 
merous documents  upon  which  -we  ground  our  assertions;  we 
have,  too,  taken  into  account  not  only  the  opinions  of  their 
authors,  but  also  the  influence  of  the  environment  in  which 
they  wrote.  Only  where  faith  and  the  scientific  spirit  work 
together,  it  seems  to  us,  can  the  true  theological  spirit  be  found. 

Such  are  the  principles  that  have  guided  us.  If  in  this 
way  we  succeed  in  enlightening  the  minds  and  moving  the 
hearts  of  our  readers  to  a  clearer  and  fuller  realization  of 
the  meaning  of  the  true  Christian  life,  we  shall  have  attained 
our  sole  object. 

L.  LABAUCHE,  S.  S. 

Paris,  May  22d,  1910. 
Feast  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity. 


CONTENTS 


Pages. 
PREFACE , vii-viii 

INTRODUCTION.   —  Description  of  the  three  great  mysteries  :   the  Trinity, 
the  Incarnation  of  the  Word,  and  the  Redemption  of  men 1-4 


FIRST  PART 

THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY 
CHAPTER  I 

* 

PRELIMINARY  NOTIONS 

Theological  idea  of  substance,  nature,  person,  and  real  distinction.  —  Pri- 
mitive meaning  of  the  words  oOaia  CTcoiTwrii;,  Trpotrwuov,  persona.  —  The 
Fathers  of  the  Western  Church  were  at  an  early  date  in  possession  of  an 
exact  Trinitarian  terminology.  —  Early  evolution  of  the  Greek  Fathers' 
terminology.  —  Circumstances  that  required  greater  precision.  —  The 
nature  of  the  hypostasis.  —  Authors  to  be  consulted 3-21 

CHAPTER  II 

THE  DIVINE  PERSONS 

ARTICLE  I 
There  is   one  God  in  three  persons 

Doctrine  of  the  Church.  —  Wisdom,  in  the  canonical  books  of  the  Old 
Testament.  —  The  Word  of  God,  in  Palestine.  —  Origin  of  the  Palesl- 
nian  doctrine  of  the  Word  of  God.  —  St.  John's  Logos.  —  The  spirit  of 


x  CONTENTS. 

Pages. 

God,  in  Ihe  canonical  books  of  the  Old  Testament.  —  The  Spirit  of  God, 
in  Palestine.  —  The  dogma  of  the  Most  Blessed  Trinity  in  the  Synoptic 
Gospels.  —  The  dogma  of  the  Most  Blessed  Trinity  in  the  Gospel  of  St. 
John.  —  The  dogma  of  the  Most  Blessed  Trinity  in  the  epistles  of  St. 
Paul.  —  Doctrine  of  the  Apostolic  Fathers.  —  The  Apologists.  —  St. 
Irenaeus.  —  Patripassianism  at  Rome,  at  the  beginning  of  the  third 
century.  —  The  fight  against  Patripassianism  :  St.  Hippolytus  and 
Tertullian.  —  Modalism  in  the  Orient.  —  The  fight  against  Moda- 
lism  :  Origen  and  St.  Denis  of  Alexandria.  —  Paul  of  Samosata  and  the 
synod  of  Antiocb.  —  St.  Gregory  Thaumaturgus.  —  Modalism  and  Aria- 
nism,  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century.  —  The  Precursors  of  St. 
Thomas.  —  Principles  of  the  Thomistic  synthesis.  —  The  Thomislic  syn- 
thesis   22-65 

ARTICLE  II 

The  Son  of  God 

Doctrine  of  the  Church.  —  Jesus  the  Messias.  —  Jesus  the  Son  of  man.  — 
Jesus  the  Son  of  God.  —  Jesus  God  and  man.  —  Character  of  the  Gospel 
according  to  St.  John.  —  The  Word  of  God.  —  His  equality  with  the  Fa- 
ther. —  Community  of  life  between  the  Father  and  the  Son.  —  Impor- 
tance of  St  Paul's  testimony.  —  Summary  of  his  doctrine  on  the  divi- 
nity of  our  Lord.  —  Some  particularly  significant  texts.  —  Doctrine  of 
the  Apostolic  Fathers.  —  Saint  Justin.  —  Saint  Irenaeus.  —  Condemna- 
tion ofThe»datus.  —  Tertullian.  —  Clement  of  Alexandria,  Origen,  Saint 
Denis  of  Alexandria.  —  Arianism.  -  Beginning  of  the  struggle  against 
Arianism.  —  The  council  of  Nicrea 65-106 

ARTICLE  III 

The  Holy  Ghost  is  God 

Doctrine  of  the  Church.  —  Direct  testimonies  wanting  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. —  Indirect  testimonies  numerous.  —  Doctrine  of  the  Fathers  : 
Saint  Atlanasius,  Saint  Basil,  Saint  Gregory  Nazianzus.  —  The  council 
of  Constantinople.  381 106-112 

ARTICLE  IV 

The  three  divine  persons  are  consubstantial 

Doctrine  of  the  Church.  —  Synoptic  Gospels  and  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul. 
—  Gospel  according  to  St.  John.  —  Doctrine  of  the  Fathers  on  the  dogma 
of  comubslantiality,  from  the  second  century  to  the  beginning  of  the 
fourth.  —  The  dogma  of  consubstantiality  and  the  council  of  Nicoea.  — 
Antiricene  reaction.  —  Arguments  of  the  Anomeans.  —  St.  Athanasius' 
reply  —  Arguments  of  the  Semi-Arians.  —  St.  Athanasius'  reply.  — 
Conclusion,  on  the  manner  of  development  of  this  dogma 113-131 


CONTENTS.  xi 

CHAPTER  III 

THE  DIVINE  PROCESSIONS 

ARTICLE  I 

The  Son  proceeds  from  the  Father  from  all  eternity  by  generation 

Pages. 

Doctrine  of  the  Church.  —  The  synoptic  Gospels.  —  The  Gospel  of  St. 
John.  —  The  epistles  of  St.  Paul.  —  Doctrine  of  the  Apostolic  Fathers. 
-  The  Apologist  Fathers.  —  6rigen.  —  St.  Athanasius.  —  Leading  prin- 
ciples of  the  theology  of  St.  Thomas.  —  The  Procession  of  the  Son.  — 
This  procession  is  a  generation 132-144 

ARTICLE  II 

From  all  eternity   the  Holy  Ghost  proceeds  from  the  Father  and  the  Son, 
as  from  a  single  principle 

Doctrine  of  the  Church.  —  According  to  the  New  Testament,  the  Holy 
Ghost  proceeds  from  the  Father  and  the  Son,  as  from  a  single  source.  — 
The  Greek  Fathers  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  and  the  doctrine  of 
the  procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  —  Greek  Fathers  of  the  fifth  century. 
—  St.  Augustine  and  the  doctrine  of  the  procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  — 
The  conflict  between  the  Greeks  and  the  Latins  over  the  Filioque.  —  The 
introduction  of  the  Filioque  in  the  rreed  of  Nicaea  and  Constantinople 
legitimate.  —  Distinctive  character  of  the  second  procession,  according 
to  St.  Thomas.  —  The  procession  of  love  ab  utroque.  —  This  procession 
of  love  is  not  a  generation.  —  Conclusion  on  the  processions  :  the  cir- 
cumincession 144-159 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE  DIVINE  MISSIONS 

ARTICLE  I 

The  Divine  Missions 

Description  of  the  missions  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  —  Description  of  the  mis- 
sions of  the  Son.  —  Idea  of  the  divine  missions 160-165 

ARTICLE  II 
Some  secondary  notions  regarding  the  divine  Missions 

Notion  of  the  divine  Persons.  — Attributes  of  the  divine  Persons.  —  Names 
of  the  divine  Persons..  ...  165-166 


xn  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  V 

AGREEMENT  BETWEEN  FAITH  AND  REASON  IN  THE  MYSTERY 
OF  THE  MOST  BLESSED  TRINITY 

Pages. 

The  Blessed  Trinity  a  mystery  of  the  First  order.  —  Faith  in  this  mystery 
rests  upon  established  authority.  —  The  mystery  of  the  Trinity  is  not 
contrary  to  the  principles  of  reason.  —  The  mystery  of  the  Trinity  is 
not  contrary  to  truths  duly  acquired.  —  The  mystery  of  the  Trinity  is 
not  totally  obscure 166-176 


PART  II 

THE  INCARNATE  WORD 
CHAPTER  I 

THE  FACT  OF  THE  INCARNATION  OF  THE  WORD 

ARTICLE  I 

In  our  savior  Jesus-Christ  the  human  nature  and  the  divine  nature 
are  united  hypostatically  to  the  word  of  God 

Doctrine  of  the  Church.  —  The  New  Testament  :  Summary  of  the  doc- 
trine on  the  Incarnation  of  the  Word.  —  The  prologue  of  the  Gospel  ac- 
cording to  St.  John.  —  Description  of  the  Word.  —  The  birth  and  the 
mission  of  John  the  Baptist.  —  The  Incarnation  of  the  Word  and  his 
work  of  salvation.  —  Theological  synthesis.  —  Epistle  to  the  Philip- 
pians,  chap,  n,  5-11.  —  Christological  texts.  —  Theological  synthesis. 
—  General  conclusion.  —  Doctrine  of  the  Apostolic  Fathers.  —  Saint 
Irenaeus.  —  Origen  and  Tertullian.  —  Apollinarism.  —  Nestorianism.  — 
The  fight  against  Nestorianism.  —  The  council  of  Ephesus.  —  The  Nes- 
torian  schism.  —  Adoptionism  in  the  eighth  century.  —  Scholastic  theo- 
logy :  summary.  —  Solution  of  Duns  Scot.  —  Solution  of  Cajetan  and  of 
Suarez.  —  Solution  of  St.  Thomas 177-209 

ARTICLE  II 

In  our  lord  Jesus  Christ  the   human  nature  and  the  divine  nature  united  in 
the  same  divine  hypostasis  remain  without  confusion   or  transformation 

Doctrine  of  the  Church.  —  The  New  Testament.  —  Tradition  of  the  Fa- 
thers, from  Apostolic  times  until  the  council  of  Ephesus.  —  After  the 
council  of  Epbesus.  —  The  council  of  Cbalcedon.  —  The  Monophysite 
schism.  —  Scholastic  theology 210-217 


CONTENTS.  xin 


ARTICLE  III 

In  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  we  must  admit  that  there  are  two  wills 
and  two  operations 

Pages. 

Doctrine  of  the  Church.  —  The  dogma  of  the  twofold  will  and  the  twofold 
operation,  before  the  council  of  Chalcedon.  —  After  the  council  of  Chal- 
cedon.  —  Monothelism.  —  The  light  against  Monot  holism.  —  The  third 
council  of  Constantinople,  the  sixth  ecumenical.  —  Thoughts  for  ser- 
mons and  apologetics.  —  Authors  to  be  consulted  ..................  218-231 

CHAPTER  II 

THE  HUMANITY  OF  OUR  LORD 

ARTICLE  I 
Our  Savior's  Sanctity 

§1 
POSITIVE  SANCTITY 

Obedience  of  our  Savior.  —  His  constant  prayer.  —  His  ardent  charity.  — 
Christ  received  the  fulness  of  grace  ...............................  232-238 


NEGATIVE   SANCTITY 

Sinlessness  of  Christ.  —  Christ's  exemption  from  concupiscence  and 
from  original  sin.  —  Impeccability  of  Christ.  —  How  reconcile  impeccab- 
ility with  temptation.  —  How  reconcile  impeccability  and  liberty.  — 
First  solution.  —  Second  solution.  —  Third  solution.  —  Fourth  solu- 
tion. —  The  miraculous  conception  of  our  Lord.  —  Traditional  views. 
—  Rationalistic  criticism.  —  First  objection  :  Answer.  —  Second  objec- 
tion :  Answer.  —  Third  objection  :  Answer.  —  Conclusion  ........  238-253 

ARTICLE  II 

The  human  knowledge  of  Christ 


DOCTRINE   OF    THE   FATHERS 

Doctrine  of  the  Greek  Fathers.  —  The  Latin  Fathers.  —  The  Agnoetae.    253-261 

§  H 

SCHOLASTIC   THEOLOGY 

Leading  principle.  —  The  Beatific  Vision.  —  Infused  knowledge.  —  Acqui- 
red, or  experimental  knowledge  ..................................    26t-266 


xiv  CONTENTS. 

Page*. 
§   HI 

RATIONALISTIC    EXPLANATIONS   CONDEMNED    BY   THE    C.IIUUCI1 

Theology  of  Hermann  Schell.  —  Criticism  of  his  views.  —  Theology  of 
Loisy.  —  Criticism  of  his  views.  —  The  condemnation  pronounced  by 
the  Church 2G6-280 

ARTICLE  III 

Sentiments  in  our  Savior's  soul 

The  Psychology  of  the  sentiments.  —  Sentiments  in  the  Savior's  soul..    280-284 

CHAPTER  III 

CAUSES  OF  THE  INCARNATION 

The  final  cause  of  the  Incarnation.  —  The  necessity  of  the  Incarnation.  — 
The  fitness  of  the  Incarnation.  —  The  meritorious  cause  of  the  Incarna- 
tion . .  285-295 


PART  III 

CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER 
CHAPTER  I 

THE  FACT  OF  THE  REDEMPTION 

ARTICLE  I 
Holy  Scripture 

§    I 
THE   DOCTRINE    OF   THE   REDEMPTION  IN    THE    OLD   TESTAMENT 

The  prophecy  of  Isaias.  —  Did  the  Contemporaries  of  Christ  expect  a  suf- 
fering Messias? 297-304 

§  II 

THE   DOCTRINE   OF   THE   REDEMPTION  IN  THE   NEW   TESTAMENT 

Doctrine  of  the  synoptic  Gospels.  —  Doctrine  of  the  Gospel  according  to 
St.  John.  —  Doctrine  of  the  epistles  of  St.  Paul 304-314 


CONTENTS.  iv 

ARTICLE  II 

Tradition  of  the  Fathers 

Pages. 

The  Apostolic  Fathers  and  the  Apologist  Fathers.  —  The  Greek  Fathers, 
from  the  end  of  the  second  century  to  the  middle  of  the  fifth.  —  The  Latin 
Fathers,  from  the  beginning  of  the  third  century  to  the  middle  of  the 
fifth 314-330 

ARTICLE  III 

Scholastic  Theology 
Saint  Anselm.  —  The  successors  of  St.  Anselm.  —  St.  Thomas 330-33G 

CHAPTER  II 

VICARIOUS  SATISFACTION 

Doctrine  of  the  Church.  —  Protestant  controversy.  —  First  objection  : 
Answer.  —  Second  objection  :  Answer.  —  Third  objection  :  Answer.  — 
Fourth  objection  :  Answer.  — Fifth  objection  :  Answer.  —  Sixth  objection  : 
Answer.  —  Seventh  objection  :  Answer 337-345 

CHAPTER  III 

THE  -WORK.  OF  THE  REDEMPTION 

ARTICLE  I 
The  work  of  the  Redemption  accomplished  by  our  Savior 

Expiatory  sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  the  people,  according  to  Leviticus.  — 
In  dying  upon  the  cross  Jesus  offered  the  great  sacrifice  of  expiation  for 
the  sins  of  the  people.  —  The  sacrifice  offered  by  Christ  does  away  with 
the  sacrifices  of  the  Old  Law  and  is  the  only  sacrifice  of  the  New  Law. 
—  Christ's  sacrifice  consists  in  the  bloody  death  that  he  accepted  out  of 
love  for  men.  —  All  the  other  sufferings  of  Christ  derive  their  saving 
value  from  their  relation  to  the  sacrifice  on  Calvary.  —  The  Priesthood 
of  Christ 346-356 

ARTICLE  II 
Ccntinuation  of  the  Work  of  the  Redemption 

The  Euoharistic  sacrifice.  —  The  ecclesiastical  priesthood 35C-3EO 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE  THREE  OFFICES  OF  CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER 

Doctrine  of  the  prophets.  —  Doctrine  of  our  Lord's  contemporaries.  — 
Doctrine  of  the  New  Testament.. ,  360-3G3 


xvi  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  V 

THE  WORSHIP  OF  CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER. 

Pages. 

Preliminary  notions.  —  The  humanity  of  Christ,  united  hypostatically  to 
the  divine  Word,  is  worthy  of  the  homage  of  adoration.  —  The  Heart  of 
Jesus,  considered  as  hypostatically  united  to  the  Word,  is  worthy  of 
adoration.  —  The  proper  object  of  the  devotion  of  the  Sacred  Heart.  — 
The  worship  of  the  True  Cross,  as  well  as  that  of  Images  of  the  Cross, 
in  also  a  legitimate  devotion 364-371 

Conclusion.  —  The  Moral  picture  of  our  Lord  Jesus-Christ 373-376 


GOD 


INTRODUCTION 


«  God  is  Love  »,  says  St.  John1.  It  is  characteristic  of  the 
one  who  loves  to  give  himself,  writes  St.  Thomas;  and, 
continues  that  great  Doctor,  it  is  characteristic  of  one  who 
loves  infinitely  to  give  himself  without  limit2.  These  two 
principles  explain  the  whole  economy  of  our  salvation. 

Before  man  was,  God  loved  him.  He  was  nothing  but 
the  object  of  the  love  of  God.  Men  discern  that  which  is 
good,  and  because  it  is  good,  they  love  it.  But  infinite  love 
is  different;  it  is  creative.  God  creates  us  because  He  loves 
us.  And  just  as  this  love  creates  us,  so  it  preserves  us  and 
makes  us  act. 

By  an  act  of  foolish  ingratitude,  all  mankind,  epitomized 
in  the  person  of  its  head,  despised  the  love  of  God  and  trans- 
gressed the  law  that  He  had  imposed.  Rather  than  annihilate 
us,  as  He  might  have  done,  God  chose  that  the  obstacle  that 
severed  the  relation  of  His  love  with  man  be  removed  by 
adequate  expiation  of  the  fault.  The  Word  was  made  flesh 
and  dwelt  amongst  us.  By  a  life  of  suffering,  which  ended 


1.  I  JOHN,  iv,  8,  i6. 

2.  Sum.  Theol.lll,  q.  i,  a.  1. 

T.   I. 


2  GOD. 

in  the  death  on  the  Cross,  He  brought  men  out  of  the  bondage 
of  sin  and  effected  their  reconciliation  with  God. 

The  Incarnation  of  the  Word  was  at  once  a  mystery  of 
salvation  and  a  mystery  of  light:  for  by  it  men  not  only 
learned  the  extent  of  the  love  of  God,  but  they  also  received 
the  clear  revelation  of  one  God  in  three  Persons.  Our  three 
great  mysteries  — the  mystery  of  the  Redemption,  the  mystery 
of  the  Incarnation,  and  the  mystery  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity  — 
considered  in  the  order  of  their  manifestation  to  man,  appear 
very  closely  allied.  To  merit  our  salvation,  the  Word  was 
made  flesh  and  thus  revealed  to  us  the  mystery  of  the  Divine 
Life. 

We  might  follow  the  order  just  described  and  take  up 
first  the  mystery  of  the  Redemption,  then  that  of  the  Incarna- 
tion, and  finally  that  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity.  This,  no  doubt, 
would  be  more  in  accord  with  the  order  of  the  New  Testament, 
but  it  would  be  less  so  with  that  found  in  the  Tradition  of  the 
Fathers.  The  Holy  Spirit  permitted  heresy  to  assail  first  the 
mystery  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity,  then  that  of  the  Incarnation, 
and  finally  that  of  the  Redemption ;  1hus  theology,  whose 
mission  it  is  to  explain,  defend,  and  throw  light  upon  dogmas, 
was  constrained  to  go  whithersoever  the  adversary  carried 
the  fight.  While  giving  up  the  plan  of  finality  as  found  in 
the  sacred  books,  we  follow  the  plan  of  efficient  causality, 
which  is  no  less  harmonious,  no  less  wonderful. 

These  studies  will  comprise  three  parts,  as  follows  : 
Part  I.  —  The  Most  Holy  Trinity. 
Part  II.  —  The  Incarnate  Word. 
Part  III.  —  Christ,  the  Redeemer. 


FIRST  PART 

THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY 


There  are  three  persons  in  God.  These  three  are  all 
equally  God,  for  they  have  but  one  and  the  same  substance. 

The  Father  begets  the  Son  from  all  eternity;  so,  too, 
from  all  eternity,  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeds  from  the  Father 
and  the  Son,  as  from  one  principle. 

The  Father  sends  the  Son  into  the  world;  the  Holy  Ghost 
is  sent  by  the  Father  and  the  Son. 

These  are  the  three  great  and  distinct  views  that  are 
given  us  of  the  dogma  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity.  In  the 
first,  we  have  the  dogma  of  the  Divine  Persons ;  in  the  second, 
that  of  the  Divine  Processions;  and  in  the  third,  that  of  the 
Divine  Missions. 

It  may  be  well  here  to  define  certain  ideas  to  which  we 
shall  have  constant  recourse  throughout  the  work.  Then, 
after  having  exposed  and  justified  the  different  points  of  the 
dogma  of  the  Trinity,  we  shall  try  to  ascertain  how  this 
dogma  can  be  reconciled  with  the  legitimate  demands  of  reason. 

Hence  the  division  into  five  chapters  : 
Chapter  I.  —  Preliminary  Notions. 

Chapter  II.  —  The  Divine  Persons. 


4  GOD. 

Chapter  III.  —  The  Divine  Processions. 
Chapter  IV.  —  The  Divine  Missions. 

Chapter  V.  —  Agreement  between  Faith  and  Reason  in  the 
Dogma  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity. 


CHAPTER  I 

SOME  PRELIMINARY  NOTIONS 

Among  the  ideas  that  must  be  clearly  defined  at  the  out- 
set of  this  work,  two,  viz.,  those  of  substance  and  nature,  will 
serve  in  explaining  the  Unity  in  God;  and  two,  viz.,  those  of 
person  and  distinction,  the  Plurality  in  God.  \Ve  shall  first 
see  what  these  terms  mean  in  the  theological  sense  which  they 
have  had  since  the  great  Christological  councils;  and  after 
that  we  shall  study  with  profit  the  evolution  of  these  ideas. 
As  will  be  seen,  we  have  been  preoccupied  chiefly  with  the 
theological  idea  of  person. 

ARTICLE  I 
Substance,  nature,  person  real,  distinction. 

Idea  of  Substance.  —  That  which  does  not  exist  in  itself, 
but  must  have  something  besides  itself  in  which  to  exist,  (ens 
in  alio,)  is  called  accident.  That  in  which  the  accident  resides 
and  which  does  not  itself  exist  in  something  else,  but  in  itself, 
is  called  substance.  Hence  the  definition  is  :  Subtantia  est 
res  cut  compctit  habere  esse  in  se  et  non  in  alio{. 


1.  Cf.  THOMAS  AQUINAS,  Quaesl.  disp.  de  Potentia,  q.  v,  a.  3,  ad  4U"  : 
Ens  per  se  non  est  definitio  substantiae,  ut  Avicenna  dicit.  Ens  enim  non 
polest  esse  alien  jus  genus...  Sed  si  substantia  possit  habere  deftnitionem,  non 
obstante  (juod  est  genus  yeneralissimum,  erit  ejus  definitio,  quod  substantia 
est  ret  cujus  quidditali  debelur  esse  non  in  aliquo. 


6  GOD. 

Idea  of  Nature.  —  Substance  is  not  merely  an  inert 
principle  capable  of  receiving  motion.  It  is  a  principle 
which  tends  to  a  determinate  end  and  which  brings  to  bear 
upon  that  end  all  the  energy  with  which  it  is  endowed  or 
which  is  subject  to  it.  Looked  at  in  this  light,  it  should  be 
called  nature,  and  not  substance.  We  may  define  nature 
thus  :  Natura  est  substantia  quatenus  est  principium  primum 
sen  ftmdamentale  passiomtm  et  operationum^. 

Hence,  the  terms  substance  and  nature  designate  but  one 
and  the  same  thing  looked  at  from  different  points  of  view. 
When  a  thing  is  considered  as  existing  in  itself,  and  not  in 
something  else,  it  is  called  substance;  but  when  considered 
as  a  power  which  tends  to  some  determinate  end,  it  is  called 
nature"1. 

Idea  of  Person.  —  The  power  to  exist  in  itself  is,  then, 
the  distinguishing  mark  of  substance;  and  consequently  this 
feature  is  common  to  all  substance. 

But  what  is  necessary  that  a  substance  be  a  person?  The 
human  soul  is  a  substance,  yet  it  is  not  a  person.  Whence 
is  this?  Without  a  doubt,  the  human  soul  can  exist  in  itself; 
it  can,  moreover,  elaborate  sensible  data  and  get  at  realities ; 
and  it  can  will  freely.  Yet  it  can  get  at  realities  only  on  con- 
dition that  the  senses  supply  the  intelligence  with  sensible 
data;  and,  as  for  the  different  sensations,  it  can  experience 
these  only  in  connection  with  the  body,  the  body  serving  as 


1.  Ibid.,  Sum.  Theol.,  HI,  q.  n,  a.  1.  Sciendum  est  quod...  derivatum  est 
nomen  naturae  ad  significandum  quodlibet  principium  intrinsccum  motust  se- 
cundum  quod  Philosophus  dicit  quod  natura  est  principium  motus  in  eo  in 
quo  per  se  est  et  non  secundum  accidens. 

2.  Likewise,  between  the  substance  and  the  essence  of  a  being,  taken  in  the 
first  sense,  there  is  but  a  difference  of  point  of  view.    The  essence  of  a  being  is 
that  being  taken  with  all  its  constituent  elements,  that  is,  those  elements  with 
which  it  does  or  can  exist,  and  without  which  it  neither  does  nor  can  exist. 
Essence  may  also  be  defined  as  follows  :  Essentia  est  id  per  quod  ens  consti- 
tuitur  in  detenninata  specie.    Cf.  D.MI:RCU:R,  Onlologie,  n.  146,  Paris,  1902. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY .  7 

material  co-principle.  This  is  owing  to  the  fact  that  the 
human  soul  is  not  a  specifically  complete  substance.  But, 
that  a  substance  may  be  a  person,  it  must  be  primarily 
complete  in  its  species. 

Does  this  specific  completeness  suffice?  It  does  not. 
Human  substance,  made  up  of  body  and  soul,  is  specifically 
complete;  but  we  can  see  at  once  that,  if  this  substance  be 
looked  at  only  insofar  as  it  can  be  predicated,  in  a  judgment, 
of  all  men,  it  is  not  a  person.  But  we  may  also  look  at  sub- 
stance as  further  endowed  with  those  determining  marks 
that  make  a  substance  distinct  from  all  other  substances,  quid 
indivisum  in  se  et  divisum  a  quovis  alio,  an  individual  sub- 
stance. Is  substance  so  individualized  a  person? 

Let  us  look  into  this  closely.  Individual  substance, 
observes  Cardinal  Billot1,  may  be  clothed  with  a  merely  rela- 
tive individuality.  In  such  a  case,  it  can  still  be  com- 
municated to  another  person,  that  is,  in  a  physical  union. 
Thus,  in  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation,  the  humanity  of 
Christ,  individual,  it  is  true,  but  only  relatively  so,  was  yet 
physically  communicable,  i.  e.,  could  be  physically  united  to 
the  Eternal  Word  of  the  Father. 

Individual  substance  can  be  clothed,  too,  with  absolute 


1.  De  Deo  uno  el  trino,  vol.  Ill,  pars  in,  c.  1,  §  1.  DC  significations  pcr- 
sonae  general  i  in  :  Porro  individuam  secundum  quid,  illam  dicimus,  qux 
licet  singularis,  itondum  tauten  est  incommunicabilis  ea  incommunicabilitale 
quae  requiritur  ad  hoc  ut  de  nullo  possit  prxdicari.  Cum  enim  individuum 
sit  indivisum  inse  et  divisum  a  quolibet  alio,  illud  tanlum  simpliciter  indi- 
viduum agnoscitur,  quodnonpole.it  aitribui  alicui  subjeclo  sedpotius  ipsutn 
est  supposition  quod  in  prxdicalione  supponilur  Us  omnibus  qux  de  aliquo 
dicunlur  vet  diet  possunt.  Huic  autem  sU'icle  rationi  individui  triplex  com- 
municabilitat  repugnat  :  conununitas  partis,  ut  in  anima  separata;  com- 
mutiitas  assumptibilis,  ut  in  liumanitale  Chrisli;  communilas  numericae 
identitatis  cum  pluribus  distinctly  subsistcntibus,  ut  in  nalura  dirina.  Sola 
njtiur  subslantia  singularis  cui  nulla  ex  his  communicabililas  manet,  did 
palest  simpliciter  et  sine  addito  substantia  individua.  See  the  same  author: 
!>'•  \erbolncarnalo,  Part  I,  chap,  u,  $  1,  De  supposilo  et  persona.  A  veiy 
good  exposition  of  this  difficult  question  will  be  found  in  the  Commentaries  of 
Father  BUOHPENSIEKE,  In  primam  Parlem  Sum.  Theol.,  q.  HI,  a.  3,  p.  145-161. 


8  GOD. 

individuality  —  its  individuality  can  be  developed  to  perfec- 
tion. In  this  case,  it  can  no  longer  be  communicated  to 
another  person,  neither  logically  nor  physically.  It  is  then 
incommunicable,  it  is  Self,  alteri  incommunicabiiis  et  sui 
ipsitis,  sen  sui  juris. 

Now  this  individual  substance  alone  is  a  person1,  on  con- 
dition that  it  be,  moreover,  a  rational  substance,  and  conse- 
quently capable  of  having  psychological  consciousness  and 
moral  conscience,  as  well  as  moral  and  psychological  liberty. 
In  fact,  it  is  reason,  and  consequently  consciousness  and 
liberty,  that  gives  to  the  absolutely  individual  substance  that 
higher  independence  that  makes  of  it  a  being  altogether 
incommunicable,  that  makes  it  Self2. 

Hence  the  traditional  definition  of  person,  formulated 
by  Boetius  :  Naturae  rationalis  individua  substantial. 


1.  The  term  person  comes  from  the  Greek  word  7cp<5<r&>nrov ,  the  primitive 
sense  of  which  has  been  changed.    Person  is  also  called  «  hypostasis  »,  from  the 
Greek  word  ujr6(TTa<ji« ;  and  this  word,  too,  has  changed  from  its  original  meaning. 
The  term  a  hypostasis  »  is  broader,  however,  than  the  term  person ;  for  it  serves 
also  to  designate  a  fully  individualized  substance  not  endowed  with  reason.    The 
word  OnrfffTaaiw,  in  its  theological  meaning,  is  translated  by  the  two  Latin  words 
subsistentia  and  suppositum.    These  two  words,  the  first  of  which  may  be  taken 
concretely  to  signify  a  subsistent  being,  serve  to  designate  only  fully  individual 
substances  not  endowed  with  reason. 

2.  Cf.  D.  MGRCIER,  Ontologie,  n.  148.  V.  BERNIES,  La  notion  de  personnalite, 
Revue  du  Clerge"  francjais,  July  1,  1905.    These  authors  are  but  commenting  on 
St.  Thomas,  Quaestiones  disp.  de  potentia,  q.  ix,  a.  1,  ad  3ura  :  Sicut  substantia 
individua  proprium  habet  quod  per  se  existat,  ita  proprium  habet  quod 
agat;  nihilenim  agit  nisi  ens  actu...    Hoc  autem  quod  estper  se  agere  excel- 
lentiori  modo  conrenit  substantiis  rationalis  naturx  quam  aliis.    Nam  solae 
substantiae  rationales  habent  dominium  sui  actus,  ita  quod  in  eisest  agere 
etnon  agere;  aliae  vero  substantix  magis  aguntur  quam  agant.    Et  idea  con- 
venient fuit  ut  substantia  individua  rationalis  naturae  speciale  women  haberet . 

3.  We  should  observe  that  the  person,  or  hypostasis,  is  sometimes  looked  at 
concretely,  and  then  the  word  stands  for  individual  rational  substance  endowed 
with  that  ultimate  perfection  which  distinguishes  it  so  completely  from  all  others 
as  to  render  it  incommunicable,  Self.    Frequently  too,  as  most  ordinarily  happens 
in  studying  the  mysteries  of  the  Holy  Trinity  and  the  Incarnation,  this  ultimate 
perfection  is  considered  in  a  rational  substance  abstractly,  in  many  cases  at  least 
from  the  substance  itself.  It  is  then  called  personality,  person,  hypostasis,  sub- 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  9 

We  can,  then,  distinguish  in  person  three  characteristic 
elements.  The  first  is  that  ultimate  perfection  which  springs 
from  the  depths  of  rational  substance  and  which  completes  its 
individuality  by  making  it  an  incommunicable  being,  Self. 
The  second  is  the  psychological  consciousness  and  moral  con- 
science.  The  third  {^psychological  liberty,  that  is,  the  freedom 
of  choice  between  two  acts  either  contradictory  or  merely  dif- 
ferent ;  and  especially  moral  freedom,  that  is,  the  power  to  do 
the  good  dictated  by  the  moral  conscience1.  But  of  these  three 
characteristic  elements  the  first  alone  is  fundamental  and, 
strictly  speaking,  constitutes  personality.  The  other  two  are 
but  results  flowing  more  or  less  immediately  from  the  first2. 

What  constitutes  that  ultimate  perfection  which  makes 
rational  substance  an  individual,  so  distinct  from  all  other 
beings  —  tarn  divisa  a  quovis  alio  —  that  it  becomes  as  a  result 
incommunicable  to  another,  Self,  we  have  yet  to  see.  Some 
theologians  hold  that  personality  lies  in  the  existence  of 


sislentia.  In  this  case  the  last  of  these  terms  is  translated  by  the  word  subsis- 
tence, and  not  by  the  words  subsistent  being.  This  view  led  Cardinal  Billot  lo 
give,  after  St.  Thomas,  this  very  exact  definition  :  Distinctum  subsistens  in 
natura  rationali. 

1.  Some  modern  authors,  following  Descartes,  seethe  fundamental  principle 
of  person  in  the  psychological  consciousness,  that  is,  in  the  central  act  by  which 
the  personal  substance  is  conscious  of  its  actions,  or  states,  and,  to  a  certain 
extent,  of  itself.    This  they  call  the  psychological  Ego.    But  this  view  implies 
a  superfical  analysis;  for  what  these  authors  call  the  psychological  Ego  is  but 
a  result  of  the  true  Ego. 

Usually  the  term  moral  personality,  moral  Ego,  is  taken  to  mean  the  moral 
conscience  together  with  its  moral  power,  or  the  moral  power  alone. 
It  is  quite  evident,  however,  that  this  moral  personality,  this  moral  Ego,  is 
not  the  very  underlying  Ego,  the  true  Ego,  but  only  a  result  of  this. 

2.  In  the  course  of  our  analysis,  person  has  been  regarded  from  llie  point  of 
view  of  being.    If  we  examine  it  from  the  point  of  view  of  action,  we  shall  at 
once  recognize  the  fact  that  person  is  the  first  principle  underlying  all  action,  just 
as  it  is  the  first  underlying  all  being.    Let  us  take  an  example.    Suppose  that 
a  certain  person's  intellect  comprehends,  or  that  his  hand  performs  some  action, 
it  is  neither  to  the  intellect  nor  to  the  hand  that  the  action  must  be  finally 
ascribed,  nor  isitlo  be  ascribed  finally  even  to  the  nature  of  this  person,  but  to 
the  person  himself.    Hence,  person  is  said  lobe  principium  quod  agit,  nature 
being  principium  quo  remotum,  and  the  faculties  principium  quo  proximum. 


10  GOD. 

rational  substance,  in  as  much  as  this  existence  is  really  some- 
thing distinct  from  the  substance  itself,  something  superadded . 
They  define  existence  as  the  last  actualization  of  substance  : 
Esse  est  ultimus  actus1.  It  would  appear,  as  we  shall  see, 
that  this  opinion  is  drawn  from  the  tradition  of  the  Fathers 
and  is  quite  in  agreement  with  the  spirit  of  the  great  Christo- 
logical  councils.  Should  there  be  any  objection  to  it,  rather 
than  adopt  the  theories  of  Cajetan  andSuarez,  who  hold  that 
personality  lies  in  what  they  call  substantial  mode-,  it  would 
perhaps  be  better  to  resort  to  mystery  itself.  This  would 
be  a  practical  acknowledgment  that  there  is  something  that 
makes  substance  a  person,  but  that  what  this  something 
is  we  cannot  say3. 


1.  Cf.  L.  BILLOT,  De   Verbo  Incarnalo,  part  III,  chap,  n,  1,  De  supposito  el 
persona,  p.  61  :  Cerium  igitur  est,  non  sohim  ex  principiis,  sed  eliam  ex 
certaetexpliclta  sancti  Thomae  doclrinae,  quod  esse  estprincipium  suppositi 

sen  personalitalis) ;  certum  ctiam  est  apudipsum,  quod  naturae  individuae 
non  habenti  suum  esse  in se,  nee  suppositi  nomen  competit  nee  ratio;  thesis 
VII,  p.  88  :  Dicendum  quod  natura  humana  proprio  actu  essendi  carens, 
trahitur  ad  esse  personale  t'erbi,  atque  hoc  modo  fit  ut  quo  Yerbum  est 
homo;  idea  in  Chrislo,  unum  est  substantiate  esse  existentix. 

2.  According  to  CAJETAN,  this  substantial  mode  consists  of  an  entity  lying 
between  substance  and  existence  and  requiring  an  existence  possessing  a  nature 
like  its  own.  Cf.  In  lllam,  q.  iv,  a.  2.    According  to  SUAREZ,  this  entity  consists  of 
a  new  determination  of  the  substance  already  in  existence.    Cf.  De  Inc.,  disp.  XI, 
sect.  m.    For  a  criticism  of  these  two  opinions,  see   BILLOT,  loc.  cit.  part  1, 
chap,  n,  g  2,  p.  63-68. 

3.  Doss  SCOTUS  holds  that  in  created  substance  there  is  no  room  for  real 
distinction  between  substance  individual  secundum  quid  and  substance  indivi- 
dual simpliciter,  between  individual  substance  and  personal  substance.  Per- 
sonality is  nothing  but  individual  substance  regarded  in  the  light  of  the  fact 
that  it  is  not  assumed  by  another  person. 

In  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation,  the  Word  look  a  human  nature  endowed 
with  all  the  intrinsic  principles  with  which  any  person,  for  example,  Peter,  Paul, 
John,  could  be  endowed.  Yet  the  humanity  assumed  by  the  Word  was  not  per- 
sonal ;  but  only  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  the  Word  did  assume  it.  Cf.  In  IUttm, 
dist.  i,  q.  i,  n.  9,  and  n.  11,  ad  3uln;  dist.  vi,  q.  I,  a.  2  ad  5um.  On  this  point 
BILLOT  has  the  following  :  Haec  sententia  Scoti  ponit  Verbum  assumpsisse 
liumanitatem  cum  omnibus  principiis  quibus  homo  quispiam  subsistens, 
conslituitur,  omais  enim  realitas  substantial  quae  est  in  Petro,  invenilur 
univoce  in  humanitate  Ckristi.  Nihllominus  humanilas  ilia  non  est  quid 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  11 

The  Idea  of  Real  Distinction.  —  We  have  a  real  dis- 
tinction, distinctio  realis,  when  to  two  ideas  there  are  two 
corresponding1  and  distinct  realities.  Two  things  may  be 
distinct  either  because  they  are  separate,  or,  though  not 
separate,  because  each  one  has  of  its  very  nature  its  own 
distinct  characteristics.  Thus  Peter  and  Paul  are  distinct 
and  separate;  but  thought  and  the  thinking  faculty,  though 
not  separate,  are  nevertheless  distinct,  —  the  thinking 
faculty  is  a  power,  the  thought  is  an  act;  the  faculty  is  the 
cause,  the  thought  is  the  effect;  the  faculty  is  the  principle 
of  relation,  the  thought  is  the  term  of  relation. 

If  to  two  distinct  ideas  there  be  but  one  and  the  same 
corresponding  reality,  these  two  ideas  are  said  to  be  dis- 
tinct only  in  the  mind  of  the  one  who  conceives  them;  it 
is  the  reason  that  considers  them  that  makes  the  distinction. 
This  is  called  rational  distinction,  distinctio  rationis.  Such 
a  distinction  is  said  to  be  simply  rational  when  the  two  ideas 
represent  the  same  objective  reality,  under  the  same  aspect, 
though  perhaps  not  with  equal  clearness.  Such,  for  in- 
stance, are  the  ideas  of  man  and  rational  animal.  The  dis- 
tinction is  said  to  be  rational  but  founded  upon  reality,  or 
virtual,  distinctio  rationis  cum  fundamento  in  re  seu  virtua- 
lis,  when  the  two  ideas  express  under  different  aspects  but 
one  objective  reality  equivalent,  however,  to  many,  plura 
in  virtute  habens,  which  may  or  may  not  be  realized  apart 


subsistens  nee  persona,  quia  ex  hoc  solo  quod  assumitur,  cadil  a  rations 
totius  in  se,  etinduit  qtiamdam  rationem  partis.  De  Ve.rbo  incarnato,  part 
I,  c.  u,  §  1,  thesis  VII,  p.  89. 

This  opinion  has  always  been  much  opposed  by  theologians.  See  BILLOT'S 
refutation  of  it,  thesis  VII,  sup.  cit.  However,  it  has  never  been  censured  by 
the  Church.  While  criticising  it,  Cardinal  ZICLURA  says, after  BANKKS  :  Teneamus 
igitur  senlentiam  quae  magis  verilati  con  for  mis  nobis  videtur,  sed  ab  infli- 
genda  cujusque  generis  censura  contrariam  luentibus  absiinere  umnino 
debemus.  Sum.  Phil.,  Onlol.,  1.  Ill,  c.  i,  a.  4,n.  8.  On  the  opinion  of  Scotus, 
see  the  remarkable  article  of  DLBOIS,  Lc  concept  de  personnalite  et  I' union 
hyposlatique,  Revue  du  clergS  francais,  octobre  1,  1904. 


12  GOD. 

from  its  nature.     Such  is  the  distinction  held  to  exist  between 
the  perfections  of  God. 

Conclusion.  —  Our  ideas  are  all  acquired  from  the  world 
about  us.  Hence,  before  applying-  them  to  God,  we  must, 
as  far  as  possible,  strip  them  of  everything  contingent,  of 
whatever  relates  only  to  creatures.  This,  to  be  sure,  can 
be  done  but  imperfectly.  Hence  it  is  that,  while  our  ideas 
tell  us  something-  about  God,  they  do  so  but  imperfectly. 
First  philosophical,  and  then  rendered  theological  by  ab- 
straction, our  ideas  are  to  be  taken  always  at  their  analo- 
gical value  !. 

Although  the  idea  of  person,  which  has  just  been 
analyzed  and  which  we  take  as  an  example  because  of  its 
importance,  was  elaborated  in  the  course  of  dogmatic 
controversy,  and  underwent,  even  in  the  last  period  of  its 
fixation,  the  transformation  which  we  have  just  described,  it 
must  be  still  further  modified.  There  is,  in  fact,  a  great 


1.  Before  being  applied  to  God,  all  philosophical  concepts  must  be  corrected, 
i.  e.,  they  must  be  made  as  capable  as  possible  of  expressing  ideas  relating  to 
the  Divinity.  No  matter  how  well  this  transposition  may  be  made,  there  will 
always  remain  in  our  ideas  some  relativity  to  creatures,  to  the  human  mind; 
the  concept  will  be  only  analogical.  This,  however,  let  us  note  well,  does  not 
mean  that  our  ideas  can  tell  us  nothing  at  all  about  God,  as  is  held  by  some 
modern  scholars.  Such  a  view  would  soon  lead  to  agnosticism.  Philosophical 
concepts  thus  brought  by  transposition  into  the  sphere  of  theological  concepts, 
do  tell  us  something  about  God,  but  they  do  so  imperfectly. 

Before  applying  a  philosophical  concept  to  the  Divinity,  St.  Thomas  always 
takes  the  pains  to  correct  it,  i.  e.,  to  render  it  less  inadequate  for  its  work.  It 
may  not  be  out  of  place  to  give  here  an  example  of  his  method.  Let  us  take 
the  concept  of  the  number  three,  which  at  first  sight  would  seem  most  difficult 
to  transpose.  Observe  well  what  the  holy  Doctor  says  : dicimus  quod  ter- 
mini numerates,  secundum  quod  veniunt  in  prxdicationem  divinam,  non 
sumuntur  a  numero,  qui  est  species  quantitatis,  quia  sic  de  Deo  non  dice- 
renlur  nisi  metaphorice,  sicut  et  alia;  proprietates  corporalium,  sicut  lati- 
tudo,  longitudo  et  similia;  sed  sumuntur  a  multitudine  secundum  quod  est 
transcendens.  Sum.  Theol.,  P,  q.  xxx,  a.  3.  BOSSUET  has  a  good  example  of 
this  theological  method  in  his  Instruction  sur  les  titats  d'oraison,  2d  tract, 
ch.  xix,  Edit.  E.  LEVESQCE,  Paris,  1897. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  13 

difference  between  person  in  God  and  person  in  human 
creatures.  Human  substance,  because  finite,  can  exist  only 
in  one  person ;  but  this  limitation  is  an  exigency  of  its  nature 
as  a  finite  substance.  It  is  otherwise  with  infinite  sub- 
stance; for  faith  teaches  us  that  the  divine  substance,  by  the 
very  richness  of  its  infinity,  exists  in  three  persons. 

Let  us  remark  another  equally  important  difference. 
In  man  there  exists  a  real  distinction  between  person  and 
substance ;  in  God,  between  the  one  substance  common  to 
the  three  persons  and  each  of  these  three  persons,  there  can 
be  but  a  rational  distinction  based  on  reality,  distinctio 
rationis  cum  fundamento  in  re  seu  virtualis. 

ARTICLE  II 
Evolution  of  the  theological  idea  of  person. 

Primitive  Meaning  of  the  Words  Ouala,  'Yxoaiaat?, 
lips  awn  ov,  Persona. 

To  the  word  ouaia,  substance,  or  essence,  Aristotle  gives 
two  meanings  :  first,  that  of  a  concrete  substance,  as,  e.  g., 
this  man,  this  horse ;  and  secondly,  that  of  abstract  substance, 
specific,  or  essential,  as,  e.  g.,  man  in  general,  horse  in 
general  !.  The  word  uTCocriaat?,  hypostasis,  the  ancients 
applied  to  that  which  existed  in  reality,  as  opposed  to  that 
which  existed  only  in  the  mind,  or  to  what  is  unstable2. 
In  fact  the  words  hyposlasis  and  oo<na,  the  latter  taken  in  its 
primary  meaning,  meant  the  same  thing:  the  word  hypo- 
stasis  being  employed  in  contradistinction  of  a  purely  ima- 
ginary being  or  one  which,  if  real,  had  little  consistency2. 

The  primitive  meaning  of  Trpoawzov  was  face,  or  visage. 
It  was  early  adopted  into  the  language  of  the  stage  to  signify 
the  mask  which  served  as  an  actor's  disguise  in  taking  some 


1.  Categories,  ch.  v,  OOoice. 

2.  Cf.  PETAU,  De  Trinitate,  1.  v,c.  i,  5. 


14  GOD 

part  in  the  play;  hence  it  naturally  came  to  mean  «  r61e  », 
or  «  personage  ».  Hence,  too,  its  early  use  as  applied  to 
an  ambassador  as  representing  the  «  person  »  of  his  master. 

The  Latin  word  persona  also  meant  first  a  mask,  then 
an  actor,  later  on,  a  man  of  a  certain  reputation,  finally 
it  meant  simply  an  individual.  This  last  meaning,  says  de 
Regnon1,  early  became  predominant,  either  because  gram- 
marians had  recourse  to  it  to  distinguish  between  the  three 
cases  of  discourse,  «  I,  thou,  he  »;  or,  more  likely,  because 
the  term  was  employed  in  Roman  jurisprudence  to  dis- 
tinguish, in  Law,  that  which  pertains  to  men  from  that 
which  pertains  to  things.  As  early  as  the  second  century, 
Gaius  wrote  :  Omne  jus  quout/mur,  vel  adpersonas  pertinet, 
vel  ad  res,  vel  ad  actiones2. 

Under  the  Roman  Empire,  until  about  the  middle  of  the 
third  century,  Greek  and  Latin  were  in  current  use.  The 
Christian  Doctors  translated  persona  by  Trpoawrcv,  and  they 
gave  the  Greek  word  its  legal  meaning  of  individual.  In 
the  Orient,  the  word  TrpoawTrov  meant,  during  the  same  pe- 
riod, rdle,  or  character  in  a  drama.  The  ambiguity  to 
which  this  word  gave  rise  was  responsible  for  much  of 
the  mutual  misunderstanding  at  the  time  of  the  Christolo- 
gical  and  Trinitarian  controversies. 

The  Fathers  of  the  Western  Church  Early  Possess  an 
Exact  Trinitarian  Terminology.  —  In  the  third  century,  the 
Fathers  of  the  Western  Church  used  the  word  Trpcsonrov,  or 
persona,  to  designate  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost.  These  words  then  had  an  accepted  theological  mean- 
ing. They  signified  not  three  individual  substances,  but 
the  three  really  distinct  terms  of  one  and  the  same  substance. 

So,  when  the  Sabellians  taught  that  the  Word  was  but 


1.  Cf.  Etudes  sur  la  Sainte  Trinite,  6tude  II,  ch.  11,  p.  130. 

2.  Digest.,  I,  tit.  v,  1. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  15 

another  name  for  the  Father,  St.  Hippolytus  answered  them 
thus  :  «  If  again  he  allege  His  own  word  when  He  said,  «  I 
and  the  Father  are  one,  »  let  him  attend  to  the  fact,  and 
understand  that  He  did  not  say,  «  I  and  the  Father  am  one, 
but  are  one  ».  For  the  word  are  is  not  said  of  one  person, 
but  it  refers  to  two  persons,  and  one  power  »  (k-zl  8-Jo  Trpoawira 
k'ci'.'fsv.  c'jvay.'.v  5s  [/.(av1).  And  again  farther  on  :  «  If,  then, 
the  Word  was  with  God,  and  was  also  God,  what  follows? 
Would  one  say  that  he  speaks  of  two  Gods?  I  shall  not 
indeed  speak  of  two  Gods,  but  of  one  ;  of  two  Persons,  Trpoaw-jca 
si  cJ:,  however,  and  of  a  third  economy  (disposition)  oi'y.c- 
vsy.{xv  ^  7p(7Y;v,  viz.,  the  grace  of  the  Holy  Ghost2  ». 

Tertullian  is  perhaps  even  more  explicit.  «  Then  you 
have  »,  he  says,  «  two  Beings  —  One  that  commands  that 
the  thing  be  made,  and  the  Other  that  executes  the  order 
and  creates.  In  what  sense,  however,  you  ought  to  under- 
stand Him  to  be  another,  I  have  already  explained,  on  the 
ground  of  Personality,  not  of  Substance  —  in  the  way  of 
distinction,  not  of  division.  But  although  I  must  every- 
where hold  one  only  substance  in  three  coherent  and  in- 
separable Persons,  yet  I  am  bound  to  acknowledge,  from  the 
necessity  of  the  case,  that  He  who  issues  a  command  is  differ- 
ent from  Him  who  executes  it.  For,  indeed,  He  would  not 
be  issuing  a  command  if  He  were  all  the  while  doing  the 
work  Himself,  while  ordering  it  to  be  done  by  a  second. 
But  still  He  did  issue  the  command,  although  He  would  not 
have  intended  to  command  Himself  if  He  were  only  one  3  ». 

First  Stages  in  the  Elaboration  of  the  Greek  Termi- 
nology. —  The  Nicene  Fathers,  after  defining  that  the  Son 
was  not  made  but  engendered  by  the  Father,  and  that  He 
is  consubstantial  with  the  Father,  anathematized  any  one 


1.  Contra  Xoet.,  7;  P.  G.  X,  81  3. 

2.  Ibid.,  li. 

3.  Adv.  Prax.,  c.  mi;  P.  L.,  II,  168. 


16  GOD. 

who  would  say  that  the  Son  «  proceeds  from  another  hypo- 
stasis,  or  substance  (s§  stepas  OwoaTaaew?  r,  oOaiag)  than  that 
of  the  Father  *  ».  Did  the  Fathers  of  the  council  \vish  there- 
by to  identify  the  words  6Tio<rra<ns  and  ojcri'a?  Petau  thinks 
they  did2.  In  fact,  it  is  possible  that  the  Fathers  did  then 
attribute  to  the  words  ooata  and  uTrotruaui;  the  same  meaning; 
but  this  was,  no  doubt,  the  better  to  strike  the  Arians,  who 
persisted  in  attaching  to  these  words  their  original  philoso- 
phical meaning,  for  it  is  certain  that  some  time  before  the 
council  of  Nicsea,  the  Greek  Fathers  made  a  distinction  be- 
tween the  two  words.  Origen,  in  writing  against  the  Sabel- 
lians,  had  already  said  :  «  We  have  come  to  believe  that 
there  are  three  hypostases — the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the 
Holy  Ghost3  ».  And  St.  Denis  of  Alexandria  :  «  They  (the 
Sabellians)  maintain  that  if  there  be  three  hypostases,  they 
must  be  divided.  But,  be  that  as  it  may,  there  are  three; 
otherwise  let  them  suppress  the  Trinity  altogether  4  ». 

Circumstances  Which  Demanded  Still  Greater  Precision. 
—  Arianism  attacked  not  only  the  dogma  but  also  th°. 
formulas  in  which  it  was  taught.  Once  the  Fathers  of  Nicsea 
had  defined  the  Homoousin  of  the  Father  and  the  Son,  the 
Arians  no  longer  wanted  to  use  the  word  ouafa.  They 
preferred  the  word  uTroutain;  as  better  adapted  to  their 
wonted  ambiguity;  and  to  this  they  attached  the  meaning 
of  ouuta.  So  they  said  :  «  Since  there  are  three  hypostases 
in  God,  there  are  three  beings.  Now,  only  one  can  be  God ; 
therefore  neither  the  Son  nor  the  Holy  Ghost  is  God  » .  There 
was  no  end  to  their  repetition  of  this.  As  a  result  of  this 
controversy,  the  Latins  saw  that  the  Greeks  used  the  word 
OiroffTaai;  in  the  sense  of  substantia.  The  Latins  then  looked 


1.  DENZINGER-BANNWART,  54. 

2.  Cf.  Loc.  cit.,  c.  I,  6. 

3.  In  Joan.,  t.  II;  P.  G.,  XIV,  128. 

4.  Cited  in  BASIL,  De  Spiritu  Sancto,  c.  xxix,  72;  P.  G.,  XXXII,  201. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  17 


upon  the  word  i-i^ast?  with  suspicion,  and  asked  that  the 
Greek  formula  «  three  hypostases  »  be  made  to  conform 
with  the  Latin  «  three  persons  ». 

The  contention  of  the  Latins  was  backed  up  in  the 
Orient  by  the  Sabellians,  who  found  that  the  wording 
«  three  persons  »  —  which  to  them  meant  «  three  rdles  » 
—  expressed  better  the  life  of  the  Trinity.  The  Greek 
Fathers,  on  the  other  hand,  were  led  to  suspect  the  word 


This  state  of  confusion,  now  smouldering1,  now  breaking 
out  into  the  fires  of  argumentation,  lasted  until  the  pro- 
vincial council  of  Alexandria,  in  the  year  362,  when  the 
agitation  provoked  by  the  confusion  of  these  terms,  «  hypo- 
stasis  »  and  «  person  »,  showed  how  imperative  it  was  to 
define  clearly  their  meaning1. 

St.  Basil,  in  a  letter  to  his  brother,  St.  Gregory  of  Nyssa, 
undertook  to  treat  of  the  difference  between  the  terms 


1.  St.  Gregory  Nazianzene,  in  his  Panegyric  on  St.  Athanasius,  bears 
witness  to  the  excitement  aroused  in  the  council  by  the  words  «  hypostasis  » 
and  «  person  ».  He  says  :  «  We  Greeks  say  religiously  one  substance  and  three 
hypostases,  the  first  word  signifying  the  divine  nature,  the  second  the  trinity 
of  individualizing  properties.  The  Latins  were  of  the  same  mind,  but  because 
of  the  narrowness  of  their  tongue  and  poverty  of  their  vocabulary  they  could 
not  distinguish  between  hypostasis  and  substance,  so  they  used  the  word 
'  persons  »,  that  they  might  not  appear  to  hold  that  there  are  three  substances. 
What  was  the  result?  A  very  laughable  one,  were  it  not  so  lamentable.  It 
was  thought  that  there  was  a  difference  of  faith  where  there  was  but  a  quarrel 
over  a  sound.  Sabellianism  was  seen  lurking  behind  three  persons;  and  behind 
three  hypostases,  Arianism,  —  mere  spectres  conjured  by  the  spirit  of  dispute. 
Bad  blood  developed,  —  it  always  does  in  dispute ;  but  little  more,  and  with 
all  their  splitting  of  syllables,  they  would  have  split  the  world  in  two.  The 
blessed  Athanasius  saw  and  heard  all  this;  but,  being  truly  a  man  of  God  and 
a  great  director  of  souls,  he  thought  it  his  duly  to  put  an  end  to  a  division  of 
reason  so  unwarranted  and  out  of  place.  He  look  it  upon  himself  to  apply  the 
remedy  to  this  evil.  And  how  did  he  go  about  it?  In  all  goodness  and  gentle- 
ness he  called  together  the  two  parties  and,  having  carefully  examined  the 
thought  which  lay  under  their  respective  formulae,  and  finding  a  perfect  con- 
formity in  their  faith,  he  dismissed  the  question  of  words  and  bound  them 
together  by  the  things  they  represented.  »  In  laudem  Alhanasii,  or.  XXI,  35; 
P.  G.,  XXXV,  1124-1125. 

T.  I.  2 


18  GOD. 

substance  and  hypostasis  !.  Oicna,  he  explains,  is  that  which 
is  common  to  the  individuals  of  the  same  species  (TO  y.oiviv), 
that  which  they  all  possess  alike,  and  which  enables  us  to 
call  them  all  by  one  name,  without  meaning  any  of  them 
in  particular.  But  this  cjst'a  can  have  objective  existence 
only  when  completed  by  the  individual  marks  that  may 
determine  it.  The  c!xr!a  together  with  these  individualiz- 
ing characteristics  is  the  u^oonraari?  2.  Though  not  definitive, 
this  idea  of  hypostasis  was  sufficient  to  throw  some  light 
upon  the  controversy  and  to  keep  it  from  degenerating  into 
a  mere  quarrel  about  words.  St.  Gregory  Nazianzene 
completed  the  work  of  St.  Basil  when  he  said  that,  if  we 
leave  out  the  meaning  of  r6le,  or  character  in  a  play,  the 
word  zp6(7(07:ov  may  be  considered  synonymous  with  the 
word  u-o 


Nature  of  Hypostasis.  —  What  were  the  individualizing, 
or  distinguishing  characteristics  which  make  substance 
hypostasis,  had  yet  to  be  determined.  Even  though  St. 
Basil's  explanation  were  to  triumph,  there  was  yet  danger 
of  confusing  hypostasis  with  individual  substance,  with 
nature  in  its  full  integrity.  It  was  no  easy  matter  to  fill 
in  this  gap;  nor  was  this  done  during  the  Trinitarian 
controversies,  but  later  on  during  the  Christological 
controversies  of  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries. 

As  early  as  the  year  362,  Apollinaris,  bishop  of 
Laodicea,  less  preoccupied,  it  is  true,  about  the  question  of 
the  relation  between  the  substance  and  the  three  hi/postages 
in  God  than  about  the  hypostatic  union  of  the  Word  with 
human  nature,  took  a  hand  in  the  dispute  on  the  question 
of  hypostasis.  His  work,  unlike  that  of  St.  Basil,  is  of  a 


1.  Epist.  XXXVIII,  1,  3,  4;  P.  G.,  XXXH,  325-329. 

2.  Cf.  J.  TIXERONT,  History  of  Dogmas,  vol.  II,  p.  76-77. 

3.  Or.  XLII,  16;  P.  G.,  XXXVI,  477. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  19 

psychological  rather  than  a  metaphysical  character.  Accord- 
ing- to  Apollinaris,  hypostasis  is  intelligent  nature,  in 
as  much  as  it  exists  by  itself,  complete  in  itself,  integrally, 
and  independent  of  the  individuals  that  surround  it;  it  is 
9  J7ic  TSAsia,  y.aO'  eaur^v,  and  hence,  in  the  order  in  which  it 
exists  is  aj-n-coucr.oc,  self-governing,  self-possessing,  attribut- 
ing to  itself  the  manifestations  of  its  activities,  a  center  of 
attribution  '. 

Applying  this  concept  to  the  Incarnate  Word  of  God, 
Apollinaris  said  that,  if  we  hold  that  there  are  in  Jesus 
Christ  two  complete  natures,  the  divine  and  the  human, 
we  must  admit  also  two  hypostases.  But  to  admit  this 
would  be  to  destroy  in  Christ  the  physical  and  moral  unity. 
Hence  the  necessity  of  denying  to  Christ's  human  nature, 
in  order  to  make  possible  the  hypostatic  union,  that  which 
makes  it  a  hypostatic  nature.  Apollinaris  did  not  hesitate 
to  say  that  Christ's  human  nature  was  deprived  of  what, 
in  it,  would  have  been  the  connatural  principle  of  higher 
thought  and  liberty,  that  is,  the  voj;. 

An  opinion  which  so  mutilated  the  nature  of  Christ 
could  not  be  accepted.  Apollinaris  was  condemned  in  377 ; 
and,  in  381,  at  the  ecumenical  council  of  Constantinople, 
the  Apollinarists  were  branded  as  heretics2. 

Apollinaris  was  wrong  when  he  placed  personality  in 
the  voy?;  but,  to  say  that  the  hypostatic  union  could  not 
have  taken  place  unless  the  humanity  of  Christ  were  deprived 
of  its  connatural  hypostasis,  was  to  state  precisely  the 
Christological  problem. 

In  what  did  hypostasis  consist?  At  the  councils  of 
Ephesus  (431)  and  Chalcedon  (451),  the  Fathers  answered 
this  question  by  saying  that  Christ  had  assumed  a  humanity 
complete,  but  not  hypostatic.  So,  Christ's  humanity, 


1.  Cf.  TIXERONT,  Rev.  d'Uiat.  el  da  Lilt,  re/.,  1903,  pp.  582-592. 

2.  DENZ.,  8. 


20  GOD. 

though  complete,  was  not  Self,  but  was  to  be  referred  to 
the  hypostasis  of  the  Word. 

But  what  was  the  nature  of  the  suppressed  hypostasis? 
Of  this  the  Fathers  of  the  councils  just  mentioned  say 
nothing1;  and  the  Church  never  defined  this  point  in  her 
teachings.  She  was  satisfied  with  affirming  that  the 
suppression  of  this  hypostasis  does  not  hinder  Christ's 
humanity  from  being  complete.  With  this  principle  she 
condemned  successively  the  Nestorians,  who  claimed  that 
Christ's  humanity  had  its  connatural  hypostasis;  the  Eu- 
tychians,  who  contended  that  the  Sacred  Humanity  was 
absorbed  by  the  Divine  Nature;  and  the  Monothelites,  who 
held  that  Christ's  humanity  was  deprived  of  its  will  and  its 
human  operations. 

Theologians,  however,  have  always  tried  to  clear  up 
this  mystery.  At  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century,  Leontius 
of  Byzantium,  a  Scythian  monk,  took  up  the  definitions  of 
St.  Basil  and  St.  Gregory  Nazianzene  and  completed  them 
with  the  aid  of  Aristotelian  philosophy.  Nature,  he  said, 
is  a  mark  of  all  being ;  hypostasis  is  that  which  characterizes 
being  by  making  it  something  complete  in  itself  and  incom- 
municable. But  individuality  and  concreteness  do  not 
always  constitute  hypostasis.  Thus,  if  considered  in  them- 
selves, the  body  and  the  soulare  complete,  —  nothing  is 
lacking  to  .make  my  soul  this  soul,  my  body  this  body;  yet, 
neither  of  them  is  a  person.  My  body  and  my  soul, 
remaining  but  parts  of  a  whole,  are  communicable  to  each 
other  in  forming  that  whole1. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century,  the  Christian 
philosopher  Boetius,  in  refuting  Nestorianism  and  Euty- 
chianism,  formulated  the  following  definition  :  «  Naturae 
rationalis  individua  substantia*  ».  This  definition  was 


1.  Cf.   Contra   Nest,    et   Eutych.;   P.    G.,    LXXXVI,    1280-1289.    —    Cf. 
V.  ERMONI,  De  Leontio  Byzantino,  ch.  m,  Paris,  1895. 

2.  Cf.  Liber  de  persona  et  duabus  naturis,  P.  L.,  LXIV,  337  and  seq. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  21 

commented  upon  by  the  Scholastic  theologians  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  St.  Thomas  took  and  developed  it  somewhat 
after  the  manner  of  Leontius  of  Byzantium1. 

Literature.  —  D.  PETAU,  Dogmata  Theologica,  De  Trinitate,  1.  IV, 
c.  i. 

TH.  DE  RBGNON,  Etudes  sur  la  Sainte  Trinite,  Etudes  II  and  III. 

J.  TIXERONT,  History  of  Dogma,  vol.  II,  p.  76-77. 

D.  MERCIER,  Ontologie,  n.  148. 

II.  BUOXPENSIERE,  In  I""1  Pai'tem  Sum.  Theol.,  q.  Ill,  a.  3,  pp.  145-161. 

L.  BILLOT,  De  Deo  uno  et  trino,  vol.  II,  part  III,  c.  I,  §  I,  De  significa- 
tione  personne  generatim. 


1.  Cf.  supra,  pp.  6-10. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  DIVINE  PERSONS 

God  exists  in  three  persons;  each  of  these  three  persons 
is  equally  God,  for  they  all  have  but  one  and  the  same  sub- 
stance. This  dogma  naturally  falls  into  four  propositions; 
and  because  of  their  importance  each  deserves  a  special 
article. 

ARTICLE  I 
Three  Persons  in  One  God. 

Doctrine  of  the  Church.  —  There  is  in  God  but  one 
substance  which  exists  in  three  persons.  \Yhat  does  this 
mean? 

The  Divine  Being  may  be  considered  under  two  as- 
pects, the  one  absolute,  the  other  relative.  If  we  consider 
the  Divine  Being  absolutely,  we  say  that  this  Being  is  One 
God ;  but  relatively  we  speak  of  the  same  Being  as  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  Hence,  the  same  Divine  Reality,  one 
when  considered  absolutely,  is  seen  to  exist  in  three  when 
looked  at  relatively. 

Now,  these  three  Persons  are  distinct  from  one  another 
only  by  the  relation  of  origin  which  constitutes  them ;  that 
is,  by  the  relations  of  paternity,  of  sonship,  and  of  spira- 
tion.  These  relations  are  real;  so  also  is  the  distinction 
between  the  three  persons  a  real  distinction.  But  between 
the  Divine  Reality  considered  absolutely  and  that  same  Rea- 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  23 

lity  considered  relatively,  there  can  be  no  real  distinction; 
the  distinction  here  is  only  virtual.  Hence,  the  three  Per- 
sons, really  distinct  from  one  another,  are  only  virtually 
distinct  from  the  divine  substance. 

But  how,  it  will  be  asked,  can  three  persons  identical 
with  one  and  the  same  thing,  be  really  distinct  from  one 
another?  Here  we  are  confronted  with  the  mystery  of  the 
divine  life,  a  mystery  too  deep  for  us  to  fathom ;  all  that 
we  can  do  is  to  scan  the  surface  that  has  been  revealed 
to  us  * . 

The  dogma  of  one  God  in  Three  Persons  was  defined  by 
the  council  of  Nicaea  2 ;  and  its  definition  was  repeated  by  the 
great  Christological  councils  of  Constantinople 3,  of  Ephesus  *, 
of  Chalcedon  5,  and  in  the  concise  declaration  of  the  symbol 
ascribed  to  St.  Athanasius  G. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century,  the  Lateran 
council,  owing  to  the  errors  of  Joachim  of  Flore,  took  up 
again  the  definition  of  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity.  This  it 
stated  in  terms  of  remarkable  precision,  and  the  formula 
given  by  that  council  is  the  one  we  shall  take  as  the  Rule 
of  Faith.  One  God  exists  in  three  Persons,  the  Father,  the 
Son,  the  Holy  Ghost,  runs  the  definition  of  the  council; 
hence,  but  one  and  the  same  infinite  Reality,  incomprehen- 
sible and  ineffable,  in  three  existences,  the  Father,  the  Son, 
the  Holy  Ghost;  but  one  and  the  same  substance  in  three 
Persons ;  but  one  and  the  same  substance  possessed  equally 
by  each  of  these  three  Persons  :  this  is  the  dogma  of  the 
Blessed  Trinity  7. 


1.  Cf.  HOSSUET,  Sermon  svr  la  xainte  Trinite,  Edit.  LKBARCQ,  II,  48-65. 

2.  DEN/.,  54. 

3.  Ibid.,  86. 

4.  Ibid.,  112-124. 

5.  Ibid.,  148. 

6.  Ibid.,  39. 

1.  DENZ.,  428  :  Firmiter  credimus  et  simpliciler  confilemur  quod  units 
solus  at  verus  Deus,  xternus,  immensus  et  incommunicabilis,  incomprehen- 


24  GOD. 

For  the  foundation  of  this  doctrine  we  shall  examine 
the  Old  and  the  New  Testament,  as  well  as  the  Tradition  of 
the  Fathers;  then  we  shall  study  the  explanation  found  in  the 
Theology  of  St.  Thomas. 

Q    !• 
THE   OLD    TESTAMENT. 

General  Idea.  —  Belief  in  certain  principles  acting  as 
intermediaries  between  God  and  creatures  appears  in  the 
earliest  books  of  the  Old  Testament.  Of  these  principles, 
those  which  have  a  particular  bearing  upon  our  question 
are  Wisdom  and  the  Spirit  of  God. 

I 

WISDOM. 

Wisdom  in  the  Canonical  Books  of  the  Old  Testament 
—  In  the  Old  Testament  the  word  Wisdom  has  different 
meanings.  All  through  the  Scriptures  it  has  first  of  all  a 
human  sense;  thus,  it  signifies,  for  example,  political  pru- 
dence1, the  skill  of  an  artisan2,  and,  in  a  general  sense,  the 
art  of  attaining  one's  end. 


sibilis,  omnipotens  et  ineffabilis,  Pater  el  Films  el  Spiritus  Sanctus  :  ires 
quidem  persons  sed  una  essenlia,  substanlia  sen  natura  simplex  omnino  : 
Paler  a  nullo,  Filius  a  Palre  solo,  ac  Spiritus  Sanctus  pariter  ab  utroque  : 
absque  initio,  semper  ac  sine  fine  :  Pater  generans,  Filius  nascens,  et  Spi' 
ritus  Sanctus  procedens.  —  Ibid.,  431  :  ...  credimus  et  confitemur,  cum  Pe- 
tro  Lombardo,  quod  una  quxdam  summa  res  est,  incomprehensibilis  quidem 
et  ineffabilis  qux  veraciler  esl  Pater,  ct  Filius  et  Spiritus  Sanctus;  tres 
simul  persona  ac  sigillatim  quxlibet  earumdem  :  et  idea  in  Deo  solum- 
modo  Trinitas  est,  non  quaternitas;  quia  qu&libet  trium  personarum  esl 
ilia  res,  videlicet  substantia,  essentia,  seu  natura  divina. 

1.  Gen.,  XLl,  33.  —  Deut.,  I,  13, 15. 

2.  Ex.,  XXVIII,  3. 


THE  MOST,  HOLY  TRINITY.  2o 

From  the  first,  however,  the  word  wisdom  has  also  a 
special  meaning  with  regard  to  God.  It  means  good  prac- 
tical sense  in  interpreting l  and  in  keeping  His  Law  2. 

In  the  book  of  Job,  the  term  often  occurs  with  a  new 
meaning,  to  designate  a  whole  body  of  doctrine.  Wisdom 
is  that  attribute  of  God  by  which  He  directs  everything  that 
He  brings  into  existence,  whether  animate  or  inanimate 
beings  3.  It  is  by  this  wisdom  that  He  inspires  men  with  the 
fear  of  the  Lord  4. 

The  book  of  Baruch  is,  in  this  respect,  much  like  that 
of  Job.  God  possesses  wisdom,  as  is  shown  by  the  order 
that  he  causes  to  reign  in  the  world  5. 

In  Proverbs,  in  Ecclesiasticus,  and  especially  in  the 
book  of  Wisdom,  Wisdom,  as  an  attribute  of  God,  is  men- 
tioned with  elaborate  developments.  Proverbs  speaks  of 
Wisdom  not  only  as  an  attribute  of  God,  but  almost  as  another 
being,  existing  side  by  side  with  God,  to  which  God  gives  life 
and  the  power  to  create  the  world  with  Him  °. 


1.  Ill  Kings,  in,  12. 

2.  Deut.,  iv,  6.  —  JER.,  vni,  8. 

3.  JOB,  xiviii,  12-28;  xxxvui-xxxix. 

4.  JOB,  XXXVIH,  28. 

5.  BARUCH,  HI,  15,  29,  32-35. 

6.  Prov.,  viii,  22-31. 

«  The  Lord  possessed  me,  »  says  Wisdom,  «  in  the  beginning  of  his  ways. 

Before  he  made  anything  from  the  beginning; 

I  was  set  up  from  eternity, 

And  of  old  before  the  earth  was  made; 

The  depths  were  not  as  yet,  and  1  was  already  conceived, 

neither  had  the  fountains  of  water  as  yet  sprung  out  : 

The  mountains  with  their  huge  bulk  had  not  as  yet  been  established  : 

Before  the  hills  I  was  brought  forth  : 

He  had  not  yet  made  the  earth,  nor  the  rivers, 

Nor  the  poles  of  the  world. 

When  he  prepared  the  heavens,  I  was  present  : 

when  with  a  certain  law  and  compass  he  enclosed  the  depths  : 

When  he  established  the  sky  above, 

and  poised  the  fountains  of  waters  : 

When  he  compassed  the  sea  with  its  bounds, 


26  GOD. 

The  doctrine  in  Ecclesiasticus  is  the  same  as  that  in 
Proverbs;  Wisdom  is  represented  as  something1  almost  distinct 
from  God1.  This  distinction  is  brought  out  even  more 
strongly  in  the  Book  of  Wisdom,  where  Wisdom  is  called 
an  emanation  of  divine  splendor,  the  reflection  of  the  eternal 
Light,  a  spotless  mirror  reflecting  the  face  of  God2. 

Mark,  however,  that  so  far  the  doctrine  of  Wisdom  is 
far  from  being-  positively  settled.  While  there  are  some  texts 
that  show,  between  God  and  Wisdom,  such  opposition  of 
relation  as  is  spoken  of  in  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity,  there 
are  others  that  represent  Wisdom  simply  as  an  attribute  of 
God,  an  attribute  very  active,  it  is  true,  but  still  only  an 
attribute.  In  a  word,  in  all  the  Scriptures  we  have  so  far 
seen,  the  dogmatic  hypostasis  is  nowhere  found. 

The  Word  of  God  in  Palestinian  Literature.  -  -  In  the 
second  half  of  the  last  century  B.  G.  and  at  the  beginning  of 
the  new  era,  the  doctrine  of  the  Word  of  Yahweh  supplanted 
that  of  Wisdom.  In  the  Targoumim  3,  the  Word  of  Yahweh, 


and  set  a  law  to  the  waters 

that  they  should  not  pass  their  limits  : 

when  he  balanced  the  foundations  of  the  earth  : 

1  was  with  him  forming  all  things  : 

and  was  delighted  every  day, 

playing  before  him  at  all  times  ; 

Playing  in  the  world  : 

and  my  delights  were  to  be  with  the  children  of  men.  » 

1.  Eccli.,  xxiv. 

2.  Wisdom,  vii,  25-26. 

«  For  she  (wisdom)  is  a  vapor  of  the  power  of  God, 

and  a  certain  pure  emanation  of  the  glory  of  the  almighty  God  : 

and  therefore  no  defiled  thing  cometh  inlo  her. 

For  she  is  the  brightness  of  eternal  light, 

and  the  unspotted  mirror  of  God's  majesty, 

and  the  image  of  his  goodness.  » 

3.  The  Targoumim  are  a  collection  of  paraphrased  translations,  done  in  the 
Aramean  tongue,  of  the  Hebrew  text  of  the  Holy  Books.    In  their  present  form, 
they  dale  no  farther  bach  than  the  year  150  A.  D.    They  are  only  a  codification  of 
the  traditional  exegesis  ol  the  synagogues;  but  they  give  us  at  least  the  Jewish 


THE  MOST  HOL\  TRINITY.  27 

the  Memra,  is  often  spoken  of  instead  of  Yahiceh.  This 
change  first  occurs  in  those  passages  in  which  the  text  as- 
cribes to  Yahweh  bodily  organs,  especially  the  organs  of 
speech.  Here  we  find  such  expressions  as  the  «  mouth  »  of 
the  Word  of  God  *  ;  the  «  voice  ~  »  of  the  Word  of  God;  the 
«  hand 3  »  of  the  Word  of  God ;  the  «  eyes  4 »  of  the  Word  of 
God ;  the  «  tongue  5  »  of  the  Word  of  God ;  the  «  breath  6  »  of 
the  Word  of  God. 

The  Targoumists  go  even  further  and  deny  to  the  Di- 
vinity not  only  bodily  organs,  but  even  a  soul,  with  all  its 
psychic  functions.  Where  God  says,  in  the  Old  Testament, 
«  My  soul  »,  they  represent  Him  as  saying  «  My  Word  »  7. 
It  is  not  God  who  feels  angry,  it  is  His  Memra  8.  It  is  His 
Memra  that  detests  evil'J;  his  Memra,  and  not  He  Himself, 
feels  sorrow 10. 

Having  transferred  all  corporal  and  psychical  qualities 
from  God  to  His  Word,  it  was  only  natural  that  they  should 
consider  this  Word  as  intermediary  between  God  and  man. 
Hence,  when  they  took  an  oath,  it  was  not  Yahweh  but  His 
word  that  was  called  upon  to  witness11.  To  this  Word  men 
were  converted  12 ;  in  it  they  placed  their  confidence  and 


belief  of  the  flrst  century  of  the  Christian  era.  Among  the  more  noted  of  the  Tar- 
goumisls,  let  us  cite  the  Rabbis  Onkelos  and  Jonathan.  Of.  M.  HA.CKSPILL,  Etudes 
sur  le  milieu  religieux  et  intellectuel  contemporain  du  Nouveau  Testament, 
Revue  Biblique,  Jan.,  1902. 

1.  JONATHAN,  Targum  on  I  Kings,  vm,  15 ;  xx,  36. 

2.  ONKELOS,  Targum  on  Deuteron.,  iv,  33;  v,  21. 

3.  ONKELOS,  Targ.  on  Exod.,  xxxm,  22. 

4.  JONATHAN,  Targ.  on  Isaias,  i,  16. 

5.  Id.,  Targ.  on  Is.,  xxx,  27. 

6.  JONATHAN,  Targ.  on.  Is.,  xxx,  33. 

7.  ONKELOS,  Targ.  on  Levit.,  xxvi,  30. 

8.  JONATH.,  Targ.  on  II  Sam.,  XXH,  16. 

9.  ONK.,  Targ.  on  Gen.,  vi,  6. 

10.  JONATHAN,  Targum  on  I  Samuel,  xv,  10-35. 

11.  ONRELOS,  Targum  on  Gen.,  xxi,  23;  xxtr,  10;  xxiv,  3. 

12.  JONATHAN,  Targum  on  Isaias,  xi.r,  22. 


28  GOD. 

looked  to  it  for  help  !.  The  Word  takes  the  place  of  Yah  well 
in  relation  to  the  entire  Creation,  as  Creator,  as  Sovereign, 
and  as  Judge2;  and  in  the  special  relations  to  Israel,  as 
Protector  of  the  Patriarchs,  as  Lawgiver  on  Sinai,  and  as 
the  one  who  inspired  the  Prophets3. 

From  this  we  see  that  there  is  some  distinction  in  the 
minds  of  the  Targoumists  between  Yahweh's  Memra  and 
Yahweh  Himself;  for  it  would  be  to  no  purpose  to  take  the 
Word  as  intermediary  between  God  and  man,  unless  the 
Word  were  distinct  from  God.  It  is  true  that  this  dis- 
tinction is  not  radical,  for  it  often  happens  that  the  Word 
is  used  as  a  substitute  for  the  name  of  Yahweh  himself,  as 
when  it  is  said  that  the  Word  was  in  the  Ark  of  the  Cove- 
nant4. This  name  is  thus  frequently  substituted  for  the 
name  of  Yahweh,  or  Elohim5.  There  is,  then,  no  well  de- 
fined distinction  of  persons  between  the  Memra  of  Yahweh 
and  Yahweh  himself ;  the  Targoumist  concept  lies  midway 
between  the  concept  of  simple  attribute  and  that  of  the  hy- 
postasis  of  our  dogma6. 

Origin  of  the  Palestinian  Doctrine  of  the  Word  of  God. 
—  How  are  we  to  explain  the  substitution  of  this  new  con- 
cept of  the  Word  of  God,  the  Memra,  for  that  of  Wisdom? 

We  must  first  observe  that  Alexandrian  philosophy  could 
exert  but  feeble  influence  in  the  formation  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Memra1. 


1.  ONKELOS,  Targum  on  Genesis,  xxi,  20  and  seq. 

2.  JONATHAN,  Targum  on  Isaias,  XLV,  12. 

3.  ONKELOS,  Targum  on  G.,  vi,  6-7;  vn,  16;  xv,  1-16;  xxvi,  2i-28. 

4.  ONKELOS,  Targum  on  Levit.,  viii,  35;  xxvi,  11. 

5.  ONKELOS,  Targum  on  Genesis,  xv,  1,  6. 

6.  Cf.  J.  LEBRETON,  F.es  Origines  de  la  Trinile,  pp.  H5-148. 

7.  During  the  course  of  the  last  two  centuries  of  the  old  era,  Platonic  philo- 
sophy was  held  in  high  esteem  at  Alexandria.    They  did  not  pretend  to  teach 
pure  Platonism,  however;  but   Plalonism  was  the  chief  philosophy  taught,  and 
great  pains  were  taken    to  modify  it  by  views   borrowed  from  other  systems, 
chiefly  from  Stoicism.     This  eclectic  philosophy  was  called  Neo-platonism. 

At  the  time  of  Christ's  birth,  the  most  prominent  Alexandrian  philosopher 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  29 

The  most  that  can  be  admitted  is  that  the  term  Logos 
found  its  way  into  Palestine,  where  it  preserved   its  Ara- 


was  Philo  (20?  B.  C.  -50?  A.  D.),  a  Jew  thoroughly  devoted  to  the  beliefs  of  his 
people.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  then,  that  his  doctrine  is  a  blend  of  Platonisrn, 
Stoicism,  and  the  Bible. 

Philo  admitted  that  there  is  a  personal  God,  Providence,  who  transcends  the 
world,  and  whom  contact  with  the  world  would  profane.  God  had  to  make  use 
of  intermediaries  in  creating  the  world.  These  are  the  Xoyot,  which  are  ranged, 
in  order,  with  the  Logos  at  their  head. 

It  is  in  his  explanation  of  the  nature  of  the  Logos  that  Philo  shows  most 
clearly  from  what  sources  he  borrowed.  He  sometimes  represents  the  Logos  as 
the  cause  of  the  admirable  unity  and  order  that  we  see  in  the  world.  The 
)OYOI  are  so  many  immediate  powers  of  operation.  Here  Philo  draws  on  Stoic 
philosophy. 

Usually,  however,  the  Logos  is  given  as  the  intermediary  principle  between 
God  and  the  world.  He  is  called  the  name  of  God,  ovojia  8eou;  another  God, 
£TEpo?  6£<$;  ;  a  second  God,  SsuTspo;  6eo;.  He  is  the  organ  of  Creation,  opyavov 
OE  ),oyov  OEOU  Si*  ov  xatEaxsyaffOr)  6  x6o[io?.  Since  the  world  is  called  the  Son  of 
God,  the  Logos  ought  to  be  called  his  First-Lorn,  TCV  jtpo-tdyovov  uidv  OVTOU 
Xoyov.  He,  and  not  God  himself,  appeared  in  the  theophanies  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. It  is  he  that  was  charged  to  carry  out  God's  orders  in  the  world;  he  is 
the  angel,  the  archangel,  and  the  prophet.  So,  too,  he  pleads  before  God  for 
man  ;  he  is  the  suppliant,  Ixitr);  :  the  High-priest,  6  ipxtepev;  ).6yo;.  Here,  Philo 
draws  upon  the  Scriptures,  and  his  views  are  colored  with  Plalonism. 

These  two  conceptions  of  the  Logos  are  quite  different,  and  it  is  not  easy 
to  see  how  Philo  reconciled  them  together.  It  seems  that  the  Logos,  regarded 
as  the  cause  of  the  order  and  the  unity  of  the  world,  lacks  personality;  it  seems 
to  be  nothing  but  the  activity  of  God,  conceived  in  an  abstract  manner  and  per- 
sonified. 

Is  this  the  case  with  the  Logos  whom  Philo  calls  the  Eldest  Son  of  God, 
and  again  angel,  archangel,  suppliant,  and  High-priest?  DRUMMOND  sees  in  Philo's 
Logos  only  a  personified  abstraction.  Cf.  Philo  Judaeus,  vol.  11,  p.  192.  LEBRK- 
TON  is  of  the  same  opinion.  Philo,  he  observes,  was  much  given  to  personifying 
things  in  the  abstract,  no  mailer  how  unimportant,  such  as  laughing,  and  the  hu- 
man speech;  and  were  we  to  take  all  his  metaphors  to  the  letter,  we  should  get 
ourselves  into  no  end  of  difficulties.  Cf.  Les  theories  du  Logos  au  dtbut  de 
I'ere  chrelienne,  Revue  des  Eludes  religieuses,  March  20,  1900.  —  Les  Ori- 
gines  du  dogmc  de  la  Trinitt,  pp.  201-203.  —  UREIIIKR  thinks  it  a  poor  method 
to  fall  back  upon  the  inconsistencies  of  Philo,  or  upon  the  fluctuating  character 
of  his  views.  According  to  Ibis  writer,  the  Logos  and  (he  logoi  arc  merely  per- 
sonified abstractions.  There  is,  he  holds,  a  reality  corresponding  to  this  whole 
int. -Hi-dual  system,  and  lhat  is  God.the  source  of  cosmic  unity  and  of  its  manifold 
aspects  which  we  so  admire  in  the  difTerent  beings.  But  all  these  abstraclions 
from  Ihe  most  humble,  be  it  the  lowest  of  the  logoi,  to  the  most  exalted,  even 
the  Logos,  are  so  many  steps  which  the  human  mind  has  to  scale  while  mounting 


30  GOD. 

mean  form,  Memra.  This  might  have  taken  place  either  at 
the  end  of  the  second  or  at  the  beginning  of  the  first  century 
B.  G.,  that  is,  at  a  time  when  there  was  cordial  intercourse 
between  the  Pharisaic  schools  of  Palestine  and  the  Jewish 
school  at  Alexandria.  We  may  say  with  certainty,  too,  that 
if  Alexandrian  influence  made  itself  felt  in  Palestine,  it  was 
before  the  time  of  Philo;  for,  despite  the  fact  he  professed  to 
have  profound  respect  for  the  beliefs  of  his  countrymen  and 
tried  to  show  that  whatever  good  there  was  in  Greek  philo- 
sophy was  borrowed  from  the  books  of  Moses  and  the  Pro- 
phets, he  was  nevertheless  looked  upon  by  the  Jews  of  Pa- 
lestine as  a  rationalist.  From  this  time  on,  too,  we  find 
that  there  was  a  weakening  of  the  ties  that  bound  the  Jewish 
school  of  Alexandria  with  the  schools  of  Palestine.  The  Pa- 
lestinian Jew  regarded  the  Jew  of  Alexandria  somewhat  as  a 
heretic.  The  philosophy  of  Alexandria,  cannot,  then,  ac- 
count for  this  concept  of  the  Word  of  God. 

As  a  Palestinian  doctrine,  its  roots  must  be  in  the  Old 
Testament ;  for,  in  Palestine,  as  we  have  seen,  theology  was 
too  conservative,  too  traditional  to  borrow  from  any  other 
source.  In  fact,  Genesis1,  speaks  of  the  Word  of  Yahweh 
and  represents  it  as  playing  an  important  part  in  the 
Creation.  But,  in  this  primitive  concept  of  the  Word,  we 
can  see  scarcely  more  than  a  poetic  personification  of  the 
voluntary  action  of  God,  such  as  we  find  in  the  Psalms2. 


in  the  knowledge  of  God.  Cf.  Les  idtes  philosophiques  et  religieuses  de  Philon 
d'Alexandrie,  1.  II,  Dieu,  les  intermediaircs  et  le  monde,  Paris,  1909. 

To  sum  up,  it  would  appear  that  Philo's  Logos  is  but  the  energy  of  God 
conceived  of  in  the  abstract,  apart  from  God  himself,  and  personified.  In  fact, 
the  Logos  without  God  is,  for  Philo,  no  more  personal  than  is  God  without  the 
Logos.  Moreover,  the  Philonizn Logos  is  a  force  whose  function  is  Ihe  organiza- 
tion of  matter;  it  is  in  no  way  connected  with  the  function  of  bringing  to  men 
the  life  and  the  light  of  God,  the  gifts  of  salvation. 

1.  Gen.,c.  i  :  «God  said...  And  it  was  done  ». 

2.  Ps.,  xxxm,    6-9  : 

«  By  the  Word  of  Yahweh  the  heavens  were  established ; 
And  all  the  power  of  them  by  the  spirit  of  his  mouth  : 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  31 

There  are  texts,  however,  which  go  further  and  speak 
of  the  Word  as  «  Messenger  »  '. 

But  outside  of  the  hints  about  the  Word  of  God,  found 
in  the  canonical  books,  we  can  find  even  in  Palestine  sev- 
eral causes  which  enable  us  to  understand  the  development 
of  this  doctrine.  First  of  all,  there  was  that  peculiar  theo- 
logical tendency  to  spiritualize  God  beyond  measure ;  to 
represent  him  as  far  removed  from  the  world  by  the 
systematic  suppression  of  everything  that  would  showr  His 
immediate  contact  with  it,  and  of  all  qualities  and  activities 
approaching  ever  so  little  to  anthropomorphism ;  and  second- 
ly, a  feeling  that  there  is  need  of  some  beings,  more  or 
less  distinct  from  the  Divinity,  to  act  as  intermediaries  be- 
tween God  and  man  and  so  maintain  the  relations  that  must 
exist  between  them.  This  certainly  accounts  to  some  extent 
for  the  pains  the  Targoumists  took  to  substitute  the  Memra 
of  Yakweh  for  Yahweh  himself. 

Let  us  observe,  too,  that  the  canonical  books  of  the 
Old  Testament  contain  a  doctrine  that  parallels  that  of  the 
Word.  It  is  the  traditional  and  authorized  doctrine  of  Wis- 
dom. Wisdom  and  the  Memra  have  more  than  one  feature 
in  common.  Like  the  Memra,  Wisdom  created  the  universe ; 
she  was  always  intermediary  in  God's  protection  of  Israel ; 
and  the  concept  of  Wisdom  fluctuated,  just  as  did  that  of 
the  Memra,  between  attribute  and  hypostasis.  Accord- 
ingly, we  can  affirm  with  certainty  that  the  doctrine  of 
Wisdom,  so  richly  developed  in  the  Old  Testament,  was  the 
source  and  origin  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Word. 

If  these  causes  seem  insufficient  to  explain  this   doc- 


Gathering  together  the  waters  of  the  sea,  as  in  a  vessel; 
Laying  op  the  depths  in  storehouses. 
Let  all  the  earth  fear  the  Lord, 

and  let  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  world  be  in  awe  of  him. 
For  he  spoke  and  they  «  ere  made  : 
He  commanded  and  they  were  created, 
l./s.,  ix,  7;  LT,  10,11.  —  Ps.,  evil,  20;  —  CXLVII,  i:>. 


32  GOD. 

trine,  we  must  recall  the  fact  that  the  time  had  now  come 
for  the  hope  of  Israel,  to  be  realized.  While  the  Pharisees 
with  unabated  zeal,  were  calling  upon  the  Word  of  Yahweh, 
were  swearing  by  that  Word,  and  by  it  still  explained  the 
Creation,  there  was  growing  up  at  Nazareth,  Jesus,  the  In- 
carnate Word,  of  wrhom  it  would  be  said :  «  Omniaper  ipsum 
facta  sunt..,  dedit  potestatem  filios  Dei  fieri [  ».  To  this  re- 
ligious working,  which  God  promotes  in  the  souls  of  the 
well  disposed,  must  we  look  for  the  last  cause  in  the  explan- 
ation of  the  development  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Word  of 
God,  which  sprang  up  in  Palestine  in  the  time  of  our  Lord. 

St.  John's  Logos.  —  During  the  second  half  of  the 
19th  century,  many  rationalistic  critics  insisted  that  St. 
John's  Logos  was  only  a  doctrine  borrowed  from  Alexandrian 
philosophy2.  But  nowadays  this  view  is  hardly  maintained. 
Harnack  recognizes  in  the  Johannine  Logos  a  direct  descen- 
dant of  the  Palestinian  doctrine  of  the  Word,  and  believes 
that  all  that  was  borrowed  from  the  Logos  of  Alexandrian 
philosophy  was  the  name3.  Loisy  holds  nearly  the  same 
opinion  and  says  that  the  fourth  Gospel  borrowed  from  Alex- 
andria only  its  allegorical  method  and  the  term  Logos'1. 


1.  JOHN,  I,  3,  12. 

2.  Cf.  E.  VACHEROT,    ttistoire  critique  de  I'Ecole  d'Alexandrie,  Le  chris- 
tianisme  et  ses  origines.  —  E.  RENAN,  Eglise  chretienne,  p.  74.  —  A.  REVILLE, 
Histoire  du  dogme  de  la  divinite  de  Jesus-Christ.  —  J.  REVILLE,  Le  Logos  d'a- 
pres  Philon  d'Alexandrie,  1877. —  La  doctrine  du  Logos  dans  le  quatrieme 
Evangile  ct  dans  les  ceuvres  de  Philon,  1881.  —  Le  quatrieme  Evangile,  1902. 

This  last  book  is  less  dogmatic  in  tone. 

3.  History  of  Dogma,  I,  97-98  :  «  The  elements  operative  in  the  Johannine 
theology  were  not  Greek  Theologoumena  —  even  the  Logos  has  little  more  in  com- 
mon with  that  of  Philo  than  the  name,  and  its  mention  at  the  beginning  of  the 
book  is  a  mystery,  not  the  solution  of  one  —  but  the  Apostolic  testimony  con- 
cerning Christ  has  created  from  the  old  faith  of  Psalmists  and  Prophets,  a  new 
faith  in  a  man  who  lived  with  the  disciples  of  Jesus  among  the  Greeks  ».     Cf. 
Harnack,  What  is  Christianity,  lecture  xi,  p.  218-220. 

4.  Le  Quatrieme  Evangile,  pp.  119-120:  «  The  fourth  Gospel  is  not  an  abstract 
philosophical  work ;  it  is  a  book  of  religion,  and  a  profoundly  Christian  book. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  33 

He  ought  to  add  that  the  name  of  the  Johannine  Logos 
must  have  come  from  the  Palestinian  Word  itself,  for  this 
Word  would  have  been  called  by  that  name,  at  a  quite  early 
date,  by  the  translation  of  the  term  Logos  into  the  term 
Memra,  Word. 

As  we  have  said,  Alexandrian  influence  could  not  have 
made  itself  felt  in  Palestine  except  before  the  time  of  Philo; 
for  that  author  was  instrumental  in  bringing  about,  between 
the  Jews  of  Palestine  and  those  of  Alexandria,  a  spirit  of 
distrust  which  put  a  damper  on  the  intellectual  relations 
between  the  two. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  an  unbiased  examination  of  the  Philo- 
nian  Logos  and  the  Logos  of  St.  John  will  show  sufficiently 
how  different  were  the  two  concepts.  It  cannot  be  denied 
that  the  Logos  of  St.  John  is  also  represented  as  the  inter- 
mediary through  which  God  does  everything ;  but  at  the  same 
time  this  Logos  is,  from  the  beginning,  the  Life  and  the  Light, 
vivifying  and  enlightening,  with  Divine  life  and  light,  every 
man  that  comes  into  the  world.  Since  men  would  not  par- 
ticipate in  this  life  and  light,  the  Logos  \vas  made  man,  and 
gave  to  the  humanity  which  he  assumed  the  fullness  of  life 
and  light;  and  he  dwelt  among  men  as  one  of  them,  com- 
municating to  them  of  the  fullness  of  his  life  and  light.  But 
this  r6le  of  Sanctifier  and  Savior,  fulfilled  by  the  Logos  of 
St.  John,  is  entirely  foreign  to  Philo's  Logos. 


It  has  no  learned  theory  under  which  to  subordinate  Tradition ;  but  it  throws 
light  upon  Tradition  by  means  of  the  elements  and  the  method  supplied  to  it 
by  the  philosophy  of  the  Greeks.  If  the  idea  of  the  Logos  and  the  Johamine 
principle  of  symbolism  are  not  Greek  and  Alexandrian,  nothing  is ;  but 
the  idea  of  the  Incarnation  and  the  symbols  employed  in  the  Gospel  are  the 
author's  own  and  arc  Christian.  There  is  a  transposing  of  doctrine  and  of  me- 
thod rather  than  a  borrowing  in  the  absolute  sense  of  that  word.  It  is  surely 
not  the  author's  purpose  to  transform  Apostolic  Tradition  in  order  to  subjugate 
it  and  himself  to  the  theories  of  Philo;  and,  though  he  may  appear  to  take 
great  liberty  with  the  data  of  the  Synoplists,  he  does  the  same  with  the  mate- 
rial drawn  from  other  sources,  and  we  may  say  that  Philo  would  recognize 
himself  in  the  fourth  Gospel  far  less  easily  than  Matthew  or  Luke.  » 

T.  i.  3 


34  GOD- 

And  not  only  in  function  do  the  two  differ,  but  in  nature 
as  well.  We  have  seen  that  the  Logos  of  Philo  was,  to  put  it 
briefly,  only  the  divine  power  regarded  in  the  abstract  and 
personified .  But  the  Logos  of  St.  John  is  altogether  different ; 
it  is  really  a  person;  there  is  an  ontological  opposition  be- 
tween it  and  God,  such  as  exists  between  the  Son  and  the 
Father,  who  is  Himself  a  person.  The  Logos  alone  is  in- 
carnate ;  and  during  the  time  that  he  is  working  the  world's 
salvation,  there  exists  the  most  intimate  relation  between 
himself  and  God,  his  Father. 

II 

THE   SPIRIT    OF    GOD. 

The  Spirit  of  God  in  the  Canonical  Books  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament. —  In  the  Old  Testament,  it  is  chiefly  Wisdom  that 
is  revealed  as  the  intermediary  between  God  and  the  world 
in  its  creation  and  government.  However,  the  Spirit  of  God  is 
also  spoken  of  in  a  sufficiently  clear  manner.  It  appears 
first  as  the  power  presiding  over  the  formation  of  the  world, 
as  we  learn  from  Genesis,  where  it  is  represented  as  hover- 
ing over  chaos,  everywhere  stimulating  by  the  warm  eman- 
ation of  its  breath  the  colossal  powers  of  nature1.  The  Spi- 
rit of  God  is  the  source  of  life  :  «  Lord,  thou  shall  send  forth 
thy  spirit,  and  they  shall  be  created  »,  cries  out  the  Psalmist2. 
It  is  the  source  of  the  life  of  man  :  «  The  Spirit  of  God  created 
me  »,  says  one  of  Job's  friends,  <v  and  the  breath  of  the  Lord 
animates  me3  ». 

But  the  chief  mission  of  the  Spirit  of  God  is  the  author 


1.  Gen.,  i,  2.  The  Spirit  of  God  is  said  to  have  moved  over  the  waters. 
This  is  an  image  of  .the  eagle  hovering  over  its  young  and  working  itb  wings 
to  warm  them  up  and  give  them  life. 

2.  Ps.,  civ,  30. 

3.  JOB,  xxxiii,  4.  See  also  Gen.,  II,  7. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  35 

of  human  life1;  the  Spirit  grants  the  special  gift  by  which 
Joseph  is  enabled  to  interpret  the  dreams  of  Pharaoh2;  and 
the  same  Spirit  imparts  to  Joshua  the  virtue  which  makes 
him  worthy  to  succeed  Moses3.  This  office  of  dispenser  of 
special  gifts,  the  Spirit  will  exercise  in  favor  of  the  Messiah ; 
he  will  give  the  King  that  is  to  come  the  intellectual  gifts 
of  wisdom  and  knowledge,  the  practical  gifts  of  counsel 
and  strength,  and  the  religious  gifts  of  understanding  and 
the  fear  of  the  Lord*.  In  Isaias  we  find  the  servant  of 
Yahweh  saying  :  «  The  Spirit  of  God  is  upon  me;  for  God 
hath  anointed  me  to  carry  good  news  to  the  unfortu- 
nate » 5. 

The  Spirit  of  God  enlightened  the  Prophets ;  hence  is 
the  Prophet  called  the  Man  of  the  Spirit  of  God6,  vir  spiri- 
tualis,  as  the  Vulgate  has  it;  and  the  Prophet  considers 
himself  as  speaking  by  the  Spirit  of  God7. 

And,  finally,  the  Spirit  of  God  sanctifies  men.  The 
Psalm  Miserere  is  typical  of  this.  The  Psalmist  asks  God  not 
to  take  from  him  the  Spirit  of  holiness8. 

From  all  this,  we  see  that  the  Spirit  of  God  is  the  inter- 
mediary through  which  God  works  in  the  world.  The  func- 
tions exercised  by  the  Spirit  are  not  always  easily  distinguish- 
able from  those  exercised  by  Wisdom.  But  for  one  who  be- 
lieves in  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity  and  sees  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment the  earliest  foreshadowings  of  this  mystery,  there  is 
nothing  astounding  in  this;  for  all  the  Divine  operations, 


1.  G'en.,  ii,  7. 

2.  Gen.,  xu,  38-39. 

3.  Num.,  xxvu,  18. 

4.  Is.,  xi,  2-3. 
6.  Is.,  LXI,  1. 

6.  Os.,  ix,  7. 

7.  II  Kings,  xxm,  2. 

8.  Ps.  L,  13  : 

Ne  projicias  me  a  facie  tua  : 

Et  Spiritum  Sanctum  tuutn  [Spiritual  Sanctilalis  tux]  ne  auferas  a  me. 


36  GOD. 

outside  of  the  life  of  the  Trinity,  are  common  to  the  three 
Persons. 

Despite  this  lack  of  precision,  the  Spirit  of  God  stands 
forth,  in  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  as  an  intermediary 
distinct  from  Wisdom.  How  far  is  it  distinct  from  God  him- 
selt?  Is  the  distinction  sharp  enough,  at  this  time,  to  allow 
us  to  call  the  Spirit  of  God  a  hypostasis?  No  one  goes  so  far. 
The  Spirit  of  God  is,  like  Wisdom,  manifested  after  the 
manner  of  an  attribute,  somewhat  distinct  from  God,  but 
to  an  extent  not  perfectly  clear.  The  Jews  could  hardly  go 
any  further ;  they  would  have  been  afraid  of  compromising 
Monotheism1. 

Palestinian  Idea  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  —  We  saw  above 
that,  in  the  Palestine  of  our  Savior's  time,  the  concept  of 
the  Word  of  God  was  substituted  for  that  of  the  Wisdom  of 
God.  Though  this  was  not  directly  responsible  for  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Spirit  of  God,  yet  the  development  of  the  latter 
was  greatly  accelerated  thereby. 

Thus,  in  the  Targonmim^  the  Spirit  of  God  is  not  only 
the  attribute  by  which  God  gives  creatures  life  and  commu- 
nicates special  gifts,  such  as  revelation  and  the  Messianic 
anointing,  but  it  is  also  the  Spirit  from  before  Yahweh.  So, 
too,  though  the  Old  Testament  often  speaks  of  the  Spirit  of 
God,  the  Spirit  of  wisdom,  of  piety,  and  of  strength,  we 


1.  Cf.  H.  B.  SWETE,  Holy  Spirit,  in  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible, 
yol.  II,  pp.  402-411.  —  M.  GUIBERT,  Le  Saint-Esprit  dans  I'Ancien  Testament. 
Toulouse,  1901.  —  Bulletin  de  Litterature  ecclesiastique,  1901,  pp.  163-167.  — 
J.  LEBRETON,  op.  cit.,  pp.  100-110. 

The  old  Jewish  doctrine  of  wisdom  received  analogous  treatment  in  the 
Jewish  school  at  Alexandria :  but  this  school  did  not,  on  the  other  hand,  know 
the  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  Philo  himself  saw  in  the  Spirit  of  God,  spoken 
of  in  the  history  of  the  Creation,  neither  an  attribute  of  God,  nor,  far  less,  a 
hypostasis.  He  look  it  to  mean  only  the  air.  The  reason  is  that  the  Neo-Pla- 
tonic  term  nveujia,  which  originated  exclusively  in  the  Stoic  school,  meant  only 
a  material  force,  whereas  the  term  Spirit  of  God,  found  in  the  Sacred  Books, 
was  essentially  a  power  wholly  cut  off  from  matter.  Cf.  M.  HACKSPILI,,  Etude 
surle  milieu  religieux  et  intellecluel  du  N.  T.,  Revue  biblique,  Jan.  1902. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  37 

never  find  the  Spirit  of  holiness  (=  Holy  Spirit),  but  always 
the  Spirit  of  the  holiness  of  Yahweh  (=  Holy  Spirit  of 
Yahweh).  But  the  Targoumists  do  not  refrain  from  using 
the  word  Holy  Spirit,  an  expression  which  points  out  much 
more  clearly  a  distinction  between  Yahweh  and  his  Spirit. 
Yet  it  does  not  go  far  enough  to  show  that  the  hypostasis 
of  the  Spirit  of  God  had  been  clearly  revealed. 

To  sum  up,  it  may  be  said  thai;,  in  the  Old  Testament, 
God's  relations  with  man  are  all  carried  on  through  inter- 
mediaries, chief  among  which  are  the  Wisdom  and  the  Spirit 
of  God1.  These  intermediaries  are  not,  so  far,  represented 


I.  There  is  frequently  mentioned  in  the  Old  Testament  another  inter- 
mediary called  the  Angel  of  Yahweh.  This  Angel  is  nearly  always  found  to  take 
part  in  the  principal  theophanies  (the  sensible  appearances  of  Yahweh)  of  the  Old 
Testament.  It  is  through  him  that  Yahweh  struggles  with  Jacob  for  a  whole 
night  (Gen.,  xxxir,  24-30),  and  appears  to  Moses  in  the  midst  of  a  burning 
bush  (Ex.,  in,  2.). 

Now,  what  is  this  angel?  In  certain  texts  he  is  represented  as  clearly  distinct 
from  God  and  inferior  to  Him.  Thus,  in  Ex.,  \\xnr,  1-11,  God  tells  Moses  that 
He  will  send  an  angel  before  him  to  put  the  Chananeans  to  flight;  and  on  hear- 
ing this,  the  people  are  disconsolate  and  feel  that  they  have  been  deceived,  for 
they  expecfed  to  have  Yahweh  personally  present.  Their  sorrow  at  this  prompts 
God  to  come  Himself,  under  the  visible  form  of  a  pillar  of  clouds,  and  confer 
with  Moses.  This  narrative  shows  quite  clearly  that,  in  the  writer's  mind,  the 
Angel  of  God  is  an  intermediary  distinct  from  God  and  inferior  to  Him. 

Again,  this  Angel  is  sometimes  regarded  as  equal  to  God.  Thus,  in  Gen., 
XLVIII,  16,  Jacob  blesses  the  sons  of  Joseph  in  the  name  of  Yahweh  and  His 
Angel,  and  he  uses  a  formula  of  benediction  which  shows  clearly  that  he  identi- 
fies the  Angel  with  God  Himself.  How  are  we  to  regard  this  Angel,  who  is  at 
once  equal  to  God  and  inferior  to  Him? 

Lagrange  observes  that  if,  in  the  Old  Testament,  there  are  theopha- 
nies in  which  the  divine  intervention  is  brought  about  through  the  Angel  of 
Yahweh,  there  are  others  in  which  God  comes  personally ;  that  the  mediation 
of  the  Angel  is  more  frequent  in  the  later  canonical  books  than  in  the  earlier 
ones,  that  the  Sepluagint  often  ascribes  to  the  mediation  of  the  Angel  what  in 
the  original  Hebrew  is  ascribed  directly  to  God.  These  observations  lead  him  to 
this  conclusion  :  a  Without  concluding  from  these  various  apparitions  that  Yah- 
web  had  a  sensible  form  proper  to  Himself  under  which  He  must  necessarily 
appear,  the  ancients  made  no  mystery  of  admitting  the  sensible  appearances  of 
Yahweh;  but  later  on,  the  tendency  was  to  regard  these  apparitions  as  conducted 
by  the  aid  of  an  ordinary  envoy  of  Yahweh.  So,  the  old  texts  were  altered,  but 
this  was  done  with  so  much  respect  and  moderation  that  the  affirmation  'I  am 


38  GOD. 

as  distinct  from  God  as  a  hypostasis ;  but  the  distinction  is 
sufficiently  well  marked  to  allow  us  to  say  that  the  dogma 
of  the  Holy  Trinity  was  clearly  foreshadowed  in  the  Old 
Testament. 

SECTION  II 
The  New  Testament. 

General  Idea.  —  Though  the  dogma  of  the  Blessed 
Trinity  was  only  strongly  intimated  in  the  Old  Testament, 
we  may  affirm  that  it  was  clearly  revealed  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament. We  shall  take  up  the  statements  regarding  this 
dogma  first  in  the  synoptic  Gospels,  then  in  the  Gospel  of 
St.  John,  and  finally  in  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul. 

The  Dogma  of  the  Blessed  Trinity  in  the  Synoptic  Gos- 
pels. —  It  was  chiefly  through  a  fact  —  the  fact  of  the  In- 
carnation of  the  only  Son  of  God  —  that  the  dogma  of  the 
Blessed  Trinity  was  revealed.  If  we  accept  this  fact,  it  is  quite 
evident  that  we  must  also  admit  in  God  plurality  of  hypo- 
stases  and  unity  of  substance,  the  former  to  explain  the  In- 
carnation, the  latter  to  save  Monotheism.  We  shall  see,  more- 
over, that  the  great  argument  upon  which  this  dogma 
rests  —  whether  we  consider  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity  in 
itself  or  according  to  the  way  in  which  it  has  always  been 
explained  and  defended  —  is  the  fact  of  the  Incarnation. 

Now,  this  fact  is  related  in  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke, 


the  Lord'  was  allowed  to  remain  on  Ihe  lips  of  the  mysterious  being.  When 
was  (his  scrupulosity  in  vogue?  It  is  found  as  early  asOsee,  and  yet  Jeremias 
still  sees  something  of  sensible  objects  in  the  ministry  of  an  angel.  It  is  impossi- 
ble to  fix  the  date;  an  idea  does  not  become  prevalent  upon  its  first  being  conceived, 
and  on  the  other  hand,  this  idea  may  have  exercised  a  certain  influence  before 
it  was  ever  recorded.  The  work  of  altering  these  expressions,  whether  done  in 
an  authorized  revision,  or  by  the  meddling  of  copyists,  was  not  yet  finished  when 
the  Old  Testament  was  translated  into  Greek.  We  should  be  even  more  loath  to 
attempt  to  fix  the  lime  when  it  began.  »  Cf.  L'Ange  de  Yahweh,  Revue  biblique, 
April  1903. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  39 

not  in  a  casual  manner,  but  by  bringing,  as  it  were,  the 
divine  hypostases  into  play.  The  Father  sends  the  Angel 
Gabriel1.  The  Holy  Ghost  is  in  a  particular  way  the  au- 
thor of  the  mystery2;  Mary  conceives  a  Son  whom  the  an- 
gels call  the  Savior  of  the  world 3,  the  Son  of  the  Most  High4, 
the  Son  of  God5. 

The  dogma  of  the  Blessed  Trinity  is  again  proclaimed 
at  the  baptism  of  Our  Lord,  which  is  recorded  by  the  three 
Synoptists.  Jesus  sees  the  Spirit  of  God  descending  upon  him 
in  the  form  of  a  dove 6 ;  a  voice  from  heaven  calls  him  the 
Beloved  Son  of  the  Father 7.  We  may  also  cite  the  following 
text  recorded  by  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke,  even  though  it 
mentions  only  the  Father  and  the  Son  :  «  All  things  are 
delivered  to  me  by  my  Father.  And  no  one  knoweth  the 
Son,  but  the  Father;  neither  dotli  anyone  know  the  Father, 
but  the  Son,  and  he  to  whom  it  shall  please  the  Son  to  reveal 
him8.  »  It  is  evidently  question  here  of  some  transcenden- 
tal relation  out  of  which  arises  the  divinity  of  the  Son,  as 
well  as  the  hypostasis  of  the  Father  and  that  of  the  Son. 

Finally,  before  the  Ascension,  which  is  to  establish  his 
glory  permanently,  the  Master  declares  to  his  assembled 
disciples  that  all  power  is  given  to  him,  and  he  commissions 
them  to  go  all  over  the  .world  to  preach  the  Gospel  and  to 
baptize  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  :  «  All  power  is  given  to  me  in  heaven  and  in 
earth.  Going,  therefore,  teach  ye  all  nations,  baptizing 
them  in  the  name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost;  teaching  them  to  observe  all  things  whatsoever 


1.  LUKE,  i,  26. 

2.  MATT.,  i,  18,  20.  LUKE,  i,  35. 

3.  MATT.,  i,  2t. 

4.  LUKE,  i,  32. 

5.  LIKE,  i,  35. 

f>.  MATT.,  m,  16.  —  MARK,  i,  10.  —  LUKE,  m,  22. 

7.  MATT.,  m,  17.  —  MARK,  i,  11.  —  LUKE,  m,  22. 

8.  MATT.,  xi,  27.  —  LLKB,  i,  22. 


40  GOD. 

I  have  commanded   you   :  and  behold  I  am  with  you  all 
days,  even  to   the  consummation  of  the  world1.  » 

The  Trinity  could  be  no  more  explicitly  stated  than  in 
this  passage,  hence  it  has  been  held  as  the  great  Trinitarian 
formula.  The  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  are  here 
represented  as  three  individuals  really  distinct  and  cons- 
tituting three  hypostases.  Not  only  is  this  distinction  brought 
out  by  the  three  terms  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  and  by 
the  general  tenor  of  the  text,  but  also  by  the  expression  «  in 
the  name  of  the  Father  »,  a  term  that  in  all  languages,  and 
especially  in  the  Hebrew  and  in  the  Aramaic,  always  desig- 
nates a  person.  True,  this  phrase  is  used  only  before  the 
term  Father,  but  the  connective  «  and  »  before  «  Son  »  and 
«  Holy  Ghost  »,  shows  clearly  that  this  phrase  is  under- 
stood and  is  to  be  repeated  before  each  of  the  other  names2. 

The  Dogma  of  the  Trinity  in  the  Gospel  of  St.  John.  — 
From  the  first,  the  prologue  of  this  Gospel  contains,  without 
a  doubt,  the  revelation  of  the  hypostasis  of  the  Father  and 
that  of  the  Son.  «  The  Word  »,  it  says,  «  was  in  God  »  (^v 
7:pci(;Tbv  Osiv),  literally  «  towards  »  God,  which  means  in  very 
active  relation  with  God.  The  preposition  xpoq  with  the 


1.  MATT.,  XXVIIT,  18-20. 

2.  The  vast  theological  importance  of  this  text  accounts,  no  doubt,  for  the 
fact  that  its  authenticity  has  been  so  much  questioned.    It  has  been  remarked 
that  the  passage  «  baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son 
and  of  the  Holy  Ghost  »,  is  not  found  in  the  quotations  of  Eusebius  of  Caesarea, 
which  are  of  earlier  date  than  the  council  of  Nicea.    The  text  quoted  reads  as 
follows  :  ic  Go,  teach  all  nations  in  my  name,  teaching  them  to  observe  all  that  I 
have  commanded  you.  »    Cf.  Demonstralio  evangelica,  1.  Ill,  6;  P.  G.,  XXIF, 
233.    It  has  been  said  on  this  account  that  the  text  of  Eusebius  is  the  one  which 
was  originally  found  in  (he  Gospel.    The  passage  as  we  have  it,  would  then  be 
a  gloss  suggested  by  the  wording  of  the  baptismal  liturgy.    Cf.  F.  C.  CONYBEARE, 
Zeiischrift  fiir  N.  T.  Wissenschaft,  1901,  pp.  275-288.    But  such  a  conclusion 
rests  upon  a  foundation  entirely  too  weak,  for  St.  Irenaeus  gives  this  passage 
of  St.  Matthew  with  its  Trinitarian  formula.    Cf.  Adv.  Haer.,  1.  Ill,  17;  P.  G., 
VII,  929.    And  so  does  Tertullian;  Cf.  De  Baptismo,  13;  P.  L.,  I,  1215.    For  a 
remarkable  discussion  on  this  question  see  J.  LEBRBTOK,  op.  cit.,  note  E,  pp.  478- 
479. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  41 

accusative  always  has  the  idea  of  activity ;  whereas,  the  same 
preposition  with  the  dative  shows  passivity  and  means  to 
be  near  something1.  In  the  expression  «  And  the  Word  was 
with  God  »,  the  preposition  «  with  »,  rcpb?,  signifies  an 
interchange  of  thought,  sentiment,  and  life  between  the  two 
Persons  :  a  relation  of  activity  with  God,  a  communicated 
life. 

It  has  been  remarked  that,  in  the  text,  the  Word  is  said 
to  be  only  tending  «  towards  »  God  (-pb;  TOV  6s3v).  Now,  this 
expression  is  evidently  taken  in  the  same  sense  here  as  it  is 
in  the  following  passage  from  the  first  epistle  of  St.  John  : 
«  We  declare  unto  you  the  life  which  was  with  the  Father, 
and  hath  appeared  unto  us1  ».  It  is  question  here  of  the 
hypostasis  of  God  the  Father  ;  hence,  the  Word  of  God  is  an 
individual,  in  constant  communication  with  God  the  Father, 
just  as  one  person  may  be  in  communication  with  another. 
The  Word  and  the  Father  are  two  persons. 

Farther  on  in  the  prologue,  we  read  that  God  made 
everything  by  his  Word  :  «  -^cma  Si'  ajTcu  IY^VSTO  ».  The 
Greek  expression  Si*  aJToii,  with  the  preposition  governing 
the  pronoun,  requires  that  the  Word  be  a  subject  really 
distinct  from  the  Father,  a  person.  This  furnishes  a  second 
argument  in  favor  of  the  personality  of  the  Word,  and  at 
the  same  time  of  the  Father. 

After  describing  the  Word  and  its  creative  action,  the 
Evangelist  goes  on  to  say  that  the  Word  came  unto  his  own ; 
that  he  gave  all  who  received  him  the  power  to  become  the 
children  of  God ;  and  that  the  Word  —  that  Word  who,  from 
his  eternal  generation,  was  possessed  of  the  fulness  of 
Divinity  —  was  made  flesh.  All  these  expressions  show  that 
the  Word  must  be  a  Person  other  than  that  of  the  Father, 
that  it  must  be  one  Person,  the  Father  another. 

Farther  on  in  the  Gospel,  we  find  again  revealed  the 


1.  I  JOHN,  i,  2-3. 


42  GOD. 

hypostatic  character  of  the  Father  and  the  Son,  this  time 
together  with  that  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Jesus  says  to  his 
Apostles  :  «  And  I  will  ask  the  Father  and  he  shall  give  you 
another  Paraclete,  that  he  may  abide  with  you  forever  :  the 
Spirit  of  truth1...  ».  This  other  «  Paraclete  »  —  the  word 
means  advocate,  defender,  helper,  comforter,  and  hence 
consoler  —  is  also  an  individual  distinct  from  the  Incarnate 
Word  and  from  the  Father;  it  is  a  third  hypostasis. 

The  hypostatic  character  of  the  Paraclete  is  again 
affirmed  with  equal  force  in  the  chapter  following,  where 
Jesus  says  :  «  But  when  the  Paraclete  cometh,  whom  I  will 
send  you  from  the  Father,  he  shall  give  testimony  of  me2.  » 
In  other  words,  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  comes  from  the  Father 
through  the  Son,  is  he  that  will  give  testimony  in  the  person 
of  the  Incarnate  Word.  Here  the  Holy  Spirit  evidently 
appears  as  an  hypostasis,  just  as  truly  as  the  Father  and  the 
Son3. 


1.  JOHN,  xiv,  16. 

2.  JOHN,  xv,  26. 

3.  In  the  course  of  our  exposition,  we  have  been  led  to  make  a  comparison 
between  the  Gospel  of  St.  John  and  his  first  Epistle.    This  is  because  the  doc- 
trine in  these  two  works  is,  at  bottom,  the  same.    No  one  will  contend  that  no 
light  is  thrown  on  either  work  by  a  comparison  with  the  other. 

Let  us  observe  also  lhat  the  first  Epistle  of  St.  John  contains  a  remarkably 
precise  statement  of  the  Trinity.  It  is  found  in  the  verse  called  the  «  Three 
Witnesses  »  :  «  Quoniam  ires  sunt  qui  testimonium  dant  in  caelo  :  Pater, 
lerbum  et  Spiritus  Sanctus ;  et  hi  ires  unum  sunt  »,  v,  7.  The  authenticity 
of  this  verse  has  been  much  questioned,  as  is  well  known ;  and,  while  it  is  not 
in  the  province  of  our  work  to  take  side  in  the  matter,  it  is  only  proper  that 
we  should  recall  the  reasons  that  militate  in  favor  of  its  authenticity  and  those 
that  are  usually  adduced  against  it. 

Tn  favor  of  its  authenticity  we  have  first  the  decree  of  the  council  of  Trent 
declaring  canonical  «  all  1he  books  of  the  Old  Testament  and  of  the  New... 
together  with  all  their  parts...  and  in  the  text  of  the  Vulgate  ».  Cf.  DENZ., 
783-784.  In  the  second  place,  there  is  the  decision  of  the  Congregation  of  the 
Holy  Office,  of  January  13,  1897.  To  the  question  :  «  Utrum  tuto  negari  aut 
saltern  in  dubium  revocari  possit  esse  authenticum  textum  S.  Joannis  in 
epistola  prima,  cap.  v  (^7),  quod  sic  se  habet  :  quoniam  tres  sunt...  », 
the  Congregation  answered  :  «  Negative  ».  Cardinal  FRANZELIN  brings  out  the 
fact  lhat  the  passage  in  question,  or  traces  of  it  at  any  rate,  is  found  in  TertuI- 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  43 

The  Dogma  of  the  Trinity  in  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul.  — 
St.  Paul  has  nowhere  given  fully  the  doctrine  of  the  Blessed 


lian,  St.  Cyprian,  St.  Fulgentius,  Cassiodorus,  and  some  others.  From  all  these 
testimonies  he  concludes  that  the  verse  of  the  Three  Witnesses  must  have  existed 
in  the  primitive  text  of  the  epistle  of  St.  John.  If,  later  on,  it  is  not  found 
in  a  great  many  manuscripts,  this  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  copyist,  for  some 
reason  or  other,  or  perhaps  out  of  sheer  negligence,  failed  to  transcribe  it.  Cf. 
De  Deo  trino,  pp.  41-71. 

Following  are  the  arguments  against  the  authenticity  of  this  passage.  Father 
CORNELY,  in  his  Introduction  au  Nouveau  Testament,  pp.  679-682,  and  the 
Abbe  PAULIN  MARTIN,  in  his  Cours  professe  a  I'lnstitut  catholique,  in  1885- 
1886,  claim  that  it  is  wrong  to  appeal  to  the  decree  of  the  council  of  Trent  in 
vindicating  the  authenticity  of  the  verse  of  the  «  Three  Witnesses  »,  for  the 
words  t  together  with  all  their  parts  »  have  reference  only  to  those  passages 
rejected  by  Protcstanls.  As  for  (he  decision  of  the  Congregation  of  the  Holy 
Office,  Father  PESCH  says  that  this  does  not  prevent  us  from  pursuing  the 
critical  study  of  the  verse  in  question  until  we  arrive  at  a  certain  solution  on 
the  matter  :  Hague,  nunc  sicut  ante  illud  decretum,  licet  critice  in  hoc 
comma  inquirere,  donee  pro  rationum  criticarum  dtgnitate  firmum  judi- 
cium  formari  possit,  idque  sine  ulla  in  congregationem  Sancli  Offl.cH  vel 
Summum  Pontificem  irreverentia.  Authentiam  vero  dogmaticam  negate 
vel  in  dubium  vocare  et  post  decretum  et  ante  decretum  semper  erat  illi- 
citum.  Praelect.  dogmat.,  vol.  If,  p.  250,  note.  Besides,  it  is  quite  clear 
that  Papal  infallibility  is  in  no  way  implied  in  the  question. 

The  authenticity  of  the  verse  of  the  «  Three  Witnesses  »  is  seriously  ques- 
tioned because,  excepting  a  single  text  of  the  twelfth  century,  none  of  the 
many  Greek  manuscripts  dating  before  the  Lateran  council  (1215)  have  it.  It  is 
not  found  in  the  principal  Latin  Fathers,  St.  Hilary,  St.  Ambrose,  St.  Jerome, 
St.  Augustine  ;  and  none  of  the  texts  cited  by  Franzelin  refer  indubitably  to  this 
verse. 

M.  Kiinstle,  professor  at  the  University  of  Freiburg-in-Brisgau  has  shown 
that  the  first  evidence  of  this  verse  is  found  in  the  Liber  apologeticus,  written 
hy  Priscillian,  about  th(:  year  380.  We  read  there  :  «  Et  asccndens  (Christus) 
in  caelos  venientibux  ad  te  Her  construct  totus  in  Poire  et  Paler  in  ipso, 
ut  manifestaretur  quod  scriptum  est  :  Gloria  in  excelsis  Deo  et  pax  homi- 
nibus  in  terra  bonae  voluntatit,  sicut  Johannes  uit  :  Tria  sunt  qui  testi- 
monium  dicunt  in  terra  :  aqua,  caro  et  sanguis  ;  et  haec  Iria  in  unum  sunt. 
Et  tria  sunt  quae  teslimonium  dicunt  in  caelo  :  Pater,  Verbum  el  Spirilus  : 
et  haec  tria  unum  sunt  in  Chrislo  Jcsu.  According  to  H.  Kunslle,  Priscillian 
interpolated  this  last  passage  in  the  first  epistle  of  St.  John,  so  as  to  justify  in 
this  way  his  Unitarian  theories.  The  text  was  then  retouched  so  as  to  appear 
orthodox,  and  in  this  shape  found  its  way  into  several  Spanish  documents.  Cf. 
Das  comma  Joanneum  auf  seine  Herkunft  untersucht,  vni-64,  in-8°,  1906. 
In  the  Revue  pratique  d'Apologetique,  July  15,  1906,  Fr.  LEBRETON,  reviewing 
this  work  says.  «  Besides  the  scientific  interest  of  this  publication  I  cannot 


44  GOD. 

Trinity.  In  his  teachings  on  the  divinity  of  the  preexistent 
Christ,  however,  he  always  represents  him  as  an  individual 
distinct  from  the  Father,  that  is,  as  a  person1.  And  when 
he  gives  us  to  understand,  by  the  attributes  that  he  discerns 
in  the  Holy  Spirit,  that  this  Holy  Spirit  is  God,  just  as  are 
the  Father  and  the  Son,  St.  Paul  shows  very  clearly  that  the 
Holy  Ghost  is  distinct  from  the  Father  as  well  as  from  the 
Son;  he  shows  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  another  person2. 

But  the  Apostle  does  not  only  mention  the  three  Persons 
severally;  there  are  passages  in  which  he  represents  all 
three  as  perfectly  distinct  and  of  the  same  rank,  thus  showing 
at  one  stroke  their  hypostatic  character  and  their  divine 
equality.  For  example,  in  this  text  from  the  epistle  to  the 
Galatians,  where  he  tells  them  that  if  they  have  become  the 
children  of  God  it  is  because  God  has  sent  them  the  Spirit  of 
his  Son,  who  (the  Spirit)  leads  them  to  consider  God  as 
Father3.  So  too,  in  another  passage,  from  the  second 
epistle  to  the  Corinthians  :  «  Now  he  that  confirmeth  us  with 
you  in  Christ,  and  that  hath  anointed  us,  is  God  :  Who 
aJso  hath  sealed  us,  and  given  us  the  pledge  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  in  our  hearts4  ».  And  in  the  following  form  of 
benediction  :  «  The  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  the 
charity  of  God,  and  the  communication  of  the  Holy  Ghost  be 


refrain  from  noting  here  its  apologetic  interest.  Since  the  appearance  of  the 
decree  of  the  Holy  Office,  January  13,  1897,  it  has  often  been  thrown  up  to 
Catholics  that  they  have  been  doomed  by  their  Church  to  maintain  an  inde- 
fensible position  in  the  field  of  criticism.  The  approbation  granted  by  the 
Archbishop  of  Freiburg  to  M.  Kiinstle's  book,  rids  us  of  this  persistent  ob- 
jection. And  the  secretary  of  the  Biblical  Commission,  Dom  L.  Janssens,  wrote 
in  a  review  of  the  book  :  «  While  congratulating  the  author  on  his  very  interest- 
ing work,  I  cannot  but  rejoice  at  the  Episcopal  approbation  under  which  it 
appears.  »  See  LEBRETON,  Les  Origines  du  dogme  de  la  Trinite,  note  K, 
pp.  525-531. 

1.  Cf.  Col.,  I,  15-20;  Philipp.  n,  6-7. 

2.  See  in  particular  i  Cor.,  H,  10-11. 

3.  Gal.,  iv,  6;  cf.  Rom.,  vm,  15. 

4.  H  Cor.,  i,  21-22. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  45 

with  you  all  »,  the  doctrine  is  even  more  clearly  exposed, 
and  the  passage  might  be  taken  as  the  equivalent  of  a  Tri- 
nitarian formula1. 

§  HI 

PATRISTIC    TRADITION. 

General  Idea.  —  The  dogma  of  the  Blessed  Trinity, 
well  foreshadowed  in  the  Old  Testament,  was  clearly  revealed 
in  the  New.  To  be  sure,  all  that  is  taught  here  is  that  the 
Son,  who  comes  from  the  Father,  was  made  man  and  that 
all  sanctification  comes  to  us  through  the  Spirit,  which 
proceeds  from  the  Father  and  the  Son.  But  it  is  clearly 
proclaimed  that  there  is  but  one  God,  who  is  God  the  Father, 
God  the  Son,  and  God  the  Holy  Ghost;  and  that  the  Father, 
the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  are  really  distinct  from  one 
another.  And  this  constitutes  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity. 

The  Apostolic  Fathers  faithfully  transmitted  the  doctrine 
which  they  had  received.  In  the  third  century,  the  heresy 
of  the  Sabellians,  or  Medalists,  compelled  the  Fathers  to 
defend  the  doctrine  of  real  distinction  between  the  Father, 
the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost.  In  the  course  of  this  work  of 
transmission  and  defense,  the  dogma  of  one  God,  Father,  Son, 
and  Holy  Ghost,  found  expression  in  much  more  forcible 
language  than  heretofore.  They  put  it  that  in  God  there 
were  three  Persons  in  one  substance. 

The  Apostolic  Fathers2.    —  St.  Clement  teaches  that 


1.  II  Cor.,  xin,  13. 

2.  The  term  Apostolic  Fathers  is  applied  strictly  to  those  writers  of  Chris- 
tian antiquity  who  knew  or  might  have  known  the  Apostles  or  some  of  them. 
Such  were  most  probably  the  author  of  the  Didacfie  (end  of  first  cent.),  the  author 
of  what  is  known  as  the  Letter  of  SI.  Barnabas  (96-97),  and,  without  any  doubt, 
St.  Clement  of  Rome  (92-101),  St.  Ignatius  of  Antioch  (f  107),  St.  Polycarp  of 
Smyrna  (f  155).    The  term  now  also  includes  Hermas  (140-155),  Papias  of  Hie- 
rapolis  (f  161  or  163),  the  author  of  the  Letter  to  Diognetus  (about  150). 


46  GOD. 

there  is  but  one  God,  but  that  this  God  is  God  the  Father, 
God  the  Son,  and  God  the  Holy  Ghost.  God  the  Father  is 
more  especially  the  author  of  the  works  of  power '.  The  Son 
was  made  man  to  save  us2.  And  the  Holy  Ghost  inspired 
the  sacred  writers  of  the  Old  Testament3.  In  thus  ascribing 
particular  work  to  each,  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost,  as  St.  Paul  did,  St.  Clement  shows  clearly  that  he  dis- 
tinguishes three  Persons  in  God.  And  furthermore,  in  two 
Trinitarian  formulas,  he  sets  forth  with  sufficient  clearness 
that  he  places  these  three  Persons  on  the  same  level.  «  We 
have  »,  says  he,  «  but  one  God,  one  Christ,  one  Spirit  of 
grace  bestowed  upon  us4.  »  Just  as  truly,  he  solemnly 
avers,  as  God  liveth,  as  Christ  liveth,  as  the  Holy  Ghost 
liveth,  he  that  keepeth  these  commandments  with  humility 
and  courage  will  be  numbered  among  the  elect5. 

St.  Clement  follows  rather  the  doctrine  of  St.  Paul. 
St.  Ignatius  of  Antioch,  adhering  rather  to  the  doctrine  of 
St.  John,  expresses  himself  more  clearly.  «  The  faithful  », 
writes  he,  «  should  be  subject  to  their  bishops,  as  Christ, 
according  to  the  flesh,  is  subject  to  his  Father,  and  the 
Apostles  to  Christ,  to  the  Father,  and  to  the  Spirit6.  »  And 
in  another  epistle,  he  says  that  the  faithful  should  be  «  the 
stones  of  the  temple  of  the  Father,  raised  aloft  by  the  instru- 
ment of  Christ  which  is  the  cross,  making  use  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  as  a  rope7.  » 


1.  Ad  Cor.,  xxvm,  4,  5. 

2.  Ad  Cor.,  XLIX,  6. 

3.  Ad  Cor.,  Mil,  1;  XLV,  2. 

4.  Ad  Cor.,  XLVI,  6. 

5.  Ad  Cor.,  LVIII,  2  :  «  Zrj  fa.fi  6   6so<;  xai  £f,  6  xuptoi;  'I^ffou;  ^KITO;  xai  TO 

diyiov »    Under  the  Old  Law  oaths  were  taken  in  the  name  of 

Yahuueh,  cf.  I  Kings,  xiv,  39;  xx,  3;  xxvr,  16;  xxix,  6.  St.  Clement  swears  in 
the  name  of  God,  of  Christ,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  showing  thereby  that  he 
regards  these  three  Persons  as  occupying  the  same  rank. 

6.  Ad  Magn.,  mi,  2. 

7.  AdEph.,  ix,  1. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  47 

In  the  prayer  which  he  offered  to  God  before  his  mar- 
tyrdom, St.  Polycarp  has  in  mind  a  doctrine  identically  the 
same  as  that  held  by  St.  Ignatius  :  «  In  all  things  (0  God  the 
Father),  I  praise  thee,  I  bless  thee,  I  glorify  thee,  through 
Jesus  Christ,  the  eternal  and  heavenly  Pontiff,  the  beloved 
Son,  to  whom,  together  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  be  glory  now 
and  forever1.  »  This  Trinitarian  doxology,  destined  to 
become  so  famous  in  the  Church,  makes  here  its  appearance 
for  the  first  time;  further  on  it  is  repeated  by  the  narrator, 
and  this  time  in  better  form  :  «  Fare  ye  well,  brethren  « ; 
says  he,  «  and  walk  ye  according  to  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ, 
to  whom  be  glory,  together  with  the  Father  and  the  Holy 
Ghost2.  » 

Thus  it  was  the  martyrs  died  :  in  the  name  of  the  Father 
and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost;  thus,  too,  according  to 
the  Didache,  were  the  catechumens  baptized  :  in  the  name 
of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost3. 

This  testimony  of  the  Fathers  shows  us  that  from  the  be- 
ginning there  was  firm  faith  in  the  mystery  of  the  Blessed 
Trinity*. 

The  Apologetic  Fathers5.  —  The  faith  of  the  Apologists 


\.  Martyr.  Sancli  Polyc.,  xin,  3. 

2.  Martyr.  Sancti  Polyc.,  xxn. 

3.  Didache,  VH,  1. 

4.  It  is  true  that  Hernias  exposes  a  different  doctrine.    He  would  say  that  it 
was  the  Holy  Ghost  that  was  made  flesh  to  constitute  the  Son  of  God ;  and  this 
he  gets  from  that  passage  in  St.  Luke  (HI,  21-22)  which  narrates  the  baptism  of 
Jesus  and  says  that  the  Holy  Spirit  came  upon  the  Savior,  while  a  voice  from 
heaven  said  :  «  Thou  art  my  beloved  Son.  »  Cf.  Simil.  V",  v,  2;  vi,  5-7.    On 
this  point,  see  L.  DLCHESM:,  The  early  history  of  the  Church,  vol.  I,  pp.  170-171. 
—  J.  TIXERONT,  History  of  Dogma,  I,  pp.  114-116.    We  should  not,  however, 
forget  that  these  words  of  Hennas  are  rather  an  attempt  to  explain  the  dogma 
of  the  Trinity  rather  than  a  statement  of  the  dogma  itself.    Though  Hermas,  as 
a  philosopher,  might  indulge  in  unacceptable  speculations  on  the  divine  mys- 
tery, as  a  Christian,  he  must  confess  the  mystery  with  as  great  precision  as  the 
other  Apostolic  Fathers. 

5.  In  the  second  century  the  Jews  assailed  the  Christians  just  as  they  did 


48  GOD. 

is  not  less  firm  than  that  of  the  Apostolic  Fathers.  Alongside 
of  the  Supreme  God,  writes  St.  Justin,  there  is  another  —  not 
an  angel,  but  God1.  This  is  the  Son  engendered  by  the 
Father  before  all  creatures2.  Being  truly  the  Son  of  God, 
he  is  distinct  from  God  the  Father  not  only  in  name,  as  a  ray 
of  light  is  distinct  from  the  sun,  but  numerically3.  Yet,  the 
two  are  always  in  perfect  accord4.  There  is  also  in  God  a 
third  One,  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  is  the  author  of  the  prophe- 
cies5. Hence,  according  to  this  famous  apologist,  there  is 
only  one  God,  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  And  this  is  the 
faith  of  the  Church;  for,  as  he  tells  us,  the  neophytes  are 
baptized  «  in  the  name  of  God,  the  Father  and  Master  of  all 
things,  and  of  Jesus  Christ,  our  Savior,  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost6.  Likewise  in  the  ceremony  of  the  Eucharist,  he  that 
presides  «  praises  and  glorifies  the  Father  of  the  universe 
through  the  name  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit".  »  And 
finally  he  says  again  :  «  In  all  the  offerings  we  make,  we 
bless  the  Creator  of  the  universe  through  his  Son  Jesus  Christ 
and  through  the  Holy  Ghost8.  » 

After  St.  Justin,  his  disciple  Tatian  taught  the  same  doc- 
trine. First  of  all,  he  says,  the  Father  engenders  a  Son,  not 
by  division  but  distribution ;  for  « that  which  is  divided  is  de- 


the  Pagans;  and  the  Pagans  likewise  persecuted  the  Christians.  But  usually 
neither  Pagan  nor  Jew  could  give  a  good  reason  for  this  attitude.  In  this  atmos- 
phere of  hatred  and  blood,  the  apologies  were  written  —  defensive  and  offensive 
arms  which  did  not  only  protect  the  breastworks  of  the  Christians,  but  sallied  forth 
and  attacked  the  enemy  on  their  own  grounds.  Among  the  Apologists  of  the 
second  century,  we  shall  cite  SI.  Justin  (150-155),  his  disciple  Tatian  (163-167), 
Athenagoras  (176-180),  and  St.  Theophilus  of  Anlioch  (180). 

1.  Dial.,  cxxvi  ;  cxxvui. 

2.  Dial.,  XLVIII;  LVI;  LXI. 

3.  Dial.,  cxxvui. 

4.  Dial.,  LVI,  11   :  "Etepo;  i<m  tou  navra  Koirjaavroc  Oeov,  dpi6(iu  Xlyw, 


5.  Dial.,  LVI.  —  Apol.,  xm. 

6.  Apol.,  LXI. 

7.  Apol.,  LXV. 

8.  Apol.,  LXVH. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  49 

prived  of  that  portion  which  is  taken  from  it,  but  distribution 
presupposes  voluntary  dispensation  and  causes  no  diminution 
in  that  from  which  it  is  drawn.  Just  as  the  light  of  a  torch 
which  serves  to  kindle  many  fires,  is  not  diminished  because 
other  torches  have  been  kindled  from  it,  so  the  Logos,  pro- 
ceeding from  the  power  of  God,  does  not  deprive  of  Logos  him 
from  whom  it  was  engendered1.  »  Alongside  the  Father  and 
the  Son,  Tatian  places  the  Holy  Ghost,  whom  he  calls  the 
similitude  of  God,  the  deacon  of  the  suffering  God2. 

Athenagoras,  in  his  «  Supplication  for  Christians  », 
makes  a  complete  profession  of  faith  in  the  mystery  of  the 
Blessed  Trinity  :  «  We  believe  in  one  only  God,  not  begotten 

but  eternal,  invisible  and  impassible who,  by  his  Word, 

created  the  universe,  embellished  it  and  preserves  it.  We 

acknowledge  also  the  Son  of  God As  for  the  Holy  Ghost, 

who  works  in  the  prophets,  we  hold  that  he  is  an  emanation 
of  God,  coming  from  and  entering  the  Godhead  like  a  ray 
from  the  sun.  Who  would  not  be  astounded,  then,  to  hear 
us  ca'led  atheists,  when  we  affirm  that  there  is  one  God  the 
Father,  one  Son  God,  and  the  Holy  Ghost;  and  when  we 
proclaim  their  unity  in  power,  and  their  distinction  in 
rank3?  » 

Let  us  finally  quote  St.  Theophilus  of  Antioch,  who  is 
commonly  held  to  have  been  the  first  to  use  the  word 
«  Trinity  ».  «  The  three  days  that  preceded  the  creation  of 
the  luminaries  »,  writes  he,  «  are  an  image  of  the  Trinity 
(T-JZCI  ei'ji'v  -cfj;  Tpiaoos;),  an  image  of  God,  of  his  Word,  and  of 
his  Wisdom4  ». 

We  see  that  these  testimonies,  —  whether  provoked  by 
the  Jews,  who  stuck  obstinately  to  the  monotheism  of  the  Old 
Law,  or  by  the  Pagans,  who  accused  the  Christians  of  being 


1 .  Or.  adv.  Gr.,  5 ;  P.G.,  VI,  816. 
1.  Ibid.,  12,  13. 

3.  Leg.  pro  Christ.,  10;  P.  C.,  VI,  909. 

4.  AdAutolyc.,  1.  II,  15;  P.  C.,  VI,  1077. 

T.    I. 


50  GOD. 

atheists,  —  arc  most  expressive  and  constitute  an  admirable 
profession  of  faith  in  the  Most  Holy  Trinity. 

St.  Irenaeus.  —  St.  Irenaeus,  in  refuting  the  heresies  of 
his  time1,  has  given  an  exposition  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trini- 
ty, free  from  all  alloy.  There  is  but  one  God,  the  God  of  the 
Old  Testament  and  of  the  New2.  But  in  this  one  God,  St.  Ire- 
naeus sees  three  persons,  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost3.  The  Son  is  begotten  of  the  Father  from  all  eternity4. 
Being  truly  God,  he  reveals  the  Father  to  both  angels  and  men ^ ; 
and ,  moved  by  the  immense  love  he^bears  us,  he  makes  himself 
like  unto  us,  that  we  may  become  like  unto  himA  As  for 
the  Holy  Ghost,  he  is  eternal7,  existing  with  God  berore  the 
creation  of  the  world8.  He  inspired  the  prophets9,  and  it  is 
through  him  that  the  Incarnate  Word  sanctifies  the  Church10. 
Following  is  the  symbol  of  St.  Irenaeus  :  «  The  Church, 
whose  seed  is  scattered  throughout  the  world  to  its  extremities, 
has  received  from  the  Apostles  and  their  disciples  this  faith  : 
She  believes  in  only  one  God,  the  Father  Almighty,  who  made 
the  heavens  and  the  earth  and  the  sea,  and  all  that  is  in 
them;  and  in  one  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  who  became 


1.  The  work  of  St.  Irenaeus,  bishop  of  Lyons  (d.  about  202),  is  entitled 
Contra  Haereses&nd  comprises  five  books.  The  original  Greek  text  is  lost.  All 
that  is  left  is  a  very  old  Latin  translation,  full  ot  stylistic  imperfections,  but  all 
the  more  valuable  because  of  its  literalness.  Portions  of  the  Greek  text  have 
been  recovered,  for  they  are  cited  in  the  writings  of  the  fourth  and  lii'th  cen- 
turies, particulary  in  the  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Eusebius  and  in  the  writings 
of  Theodoret.  In  Migne's  Patrology,  these  portions  are  set  next  to  the  Latin 
text,  in  the  volume  containing  the  Contra  Haerests,  P.  G.,  VII. 


2.  Haer., 

3.  Haer., 

4.  Haer., 

5.  Haer., 

6.  Haer., 
1.  Haer., 

8.  Haer., 

9.  Haer., 


Ill,  x-xv. 

I.  x,  1;  1,  IV,  xx,  1,  3. 
IF,  xxviil,  6;  x\x,  9. 
Ill,  VI,  2  ;  1.  IV,  iv,  2. 

III,  xix ;  1  ;  1.  V,  j>ref. 
V,  xii,  2. 

IV,  xx,  3. 
I,  x,  1. 


10.  Haer., 1.  Ill,  xvii,  2;  xxiv,  i. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  51 

Incarnate  for  our  salvation ;  and  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  who, 
through  the  prophets,  announced  the  designs  of  God,  the 
coming,  the  virginal  birth,  the  passion,  the  resurrection  from 
the  dead,  and  the  ascension  into  heaven  in  the  flesh,  of  Christ, 
our  beloved  Lord,  and  his  coming  from  on  high  in  the  glory 
of  his  Father  to  restore  all  things,  to  bring  again  to  life  the 
flesh  of  man,  in  order  that,  before  Jesus  Christ,  our  Lord,  our 
God,  our  Savior,  and  our  King,  according  to  the  decree  of  the 
invisible  Father,  every  knee  should  bend,  in  heaven,  on 
earth,  and  under  the  earth,  and  that  every  tongue  should 
confess  him,  and  that  he  should  pronounce  upon  all  a  just 
judgment :  that  the  souls  of  the  wicked,  the  rebellious  angels 
and  those  that  fell  into  apostasy,  and  impious  and  unjust 
men,  criminals  and  blasphemers  should  be  sent  into  ever- 
lasting fire ;  and  that  the  just,  the  saints,  those  who  keep  the 
commandments  and  persevere  in  charity,  whether  from  the 
beginning  or  from  the  time  of  their  repentance,  should 
receive  the  gift  of  life,  of  incorruptibility,  and  of  eternal 
glory1.  » 

Patripassianism  at  Rome,  in  the  Beginning  of  the  Third 
Century.  —  At  the  beginning  of  the  third  century,  a  certain 
number  of  Christian  doctors,  imbued  with  the  idea  that  too 
great  a  distinction  was  being  set  up  between  the  Father 
and  the  Son,  and  that  thus  the  Divinity  of  Christ  was 
endangered,  taught  a  doctrine  diametrically  opposite  to  that 
already  stated. 

In  Rome,  the  leader  of  the  party,  Sabellius,  was  ex- 
tremely radical.  He  taught  that  the  Word  has  no  separate 
existence  —  that  this  is  another  name  for  the  Father.  And 
it  was  the  Father,  consequently,  who  was  born  of  Mary  and 
who  suffered .  Hence  the  name  Patripassianism  given  to 
this  theorv2. 


1.  Haer.,  1.  I,  \,  1. 

2.  Tertullian  claims  that  it  was  a  certain  Praxcas   who  first  taught  (his 


52  GOD. 

The  Struggle  against  Patripassianism;  St.  Hippolytus1 
and  Tertullian2.  —  Patripassianism  was  attacked  at  Rome 
by  St.  Hippolytus.  God,  he  maintained,  is  one;  but  his 
essential  unity  allows  of  a  mysterious  economy,  or  cornmu- 
cation  to  three  terms  really  distinct3.  By  virtue  of  this 
economy,  the  Father  is  in  the  Son,  and  the  Son  is  in  the 
Father;  the  Holy  Ghost  is  the  third  term  of  this  economy4. 
This  economy  is  the  very  law  of  divine  unity;  so  much  so 
that  divine  unity  is  incomprehensible,  unless  we  believe 
in  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost5. 

Despite  the  active  warfare  of  St.  Hippolytus,  Sabellia- 
nism  continued  to  grow  and  to  gain  adherents.  Pope 
Callistus  therefore  intervened  and  condemned  Sabellius  for 
heresy. 

Meanwhile  Tertullian,  too,  was  wielding  his  powerful 
arm  against  the  new  doctrine.  There  is  in  God,  he  said, 
but  one  substance;  yet  in  this  one  substance,  there  is  room 


doctrine  at  the  beginning  of  the  third  century;  and  St.  Hippolylus  ascribes  it  to 
a  certain  Noetus,  who,  he  claims,  spread  it  at  Smyrna  between  180  and  200. 
It  is  enough  for  us  to  know  that  this  theory  was  maintained  by  Sabellius  at 
Rome  about  220-230.  Cf.  L.  DUCHESNE,  The  early  history  of  the  Church,  vol.  I, 
pp.  223-229. 

1.  St.  Hippolytus,  disciple  of  St.  Irenaeus,  died  about  235.    All  his  writings 
are  in  Greek,  a  language  which  ceased  to  be  spoken  at  Rome  shortly  after  his 
time.    This  accounts  for  the  fact  that  the  greater  number  of  his  works  have 
fallen  into  oblivion ;  but  the  learned  researches  of  to-day  are  bringing  them 
gradually  to  light.    Cf.  A.  D'ALES,  La  Thiiologie  de  saint  Hippolyte,  Paris,  1906. 

2.  Tertullian  was  born  at  Carthage,  about  160.    He  devoted  himself  parti- 
cularly   to  the  study  of  law  and  was  probably  admitted  to  the  bar.    About  the 
year  195,  he  was  converted  to  Christianity  and  became  one  of  its  most  ardent 
advocates.    But,  about  the  year  202,  he  publicly  identified  himself  with  the 
Monlanists.    Once  with  them,  he  was  not  long  in  becoming  the  leader  of  a 
separate   party,  which  lasted  until  the  fifth  century.    Terlullian  died  in  the 
middle  of  the  third  century.    Cf.  A.  D'ALKS,  La  Theologie  de    Tertullien, 
Paris,   1905. 

3.  Adv.  f(oet.t  8;  P.  G.,  X,  816. 

4.  St.  Hippolytus  uses  the  word  nrpoa-wTrov  to  designate  the  Father  and  the 
Son,  and  he  calls  the  Holy  Ghost  the  third  economy,  «  Hpoawrca  8s  5-jo,  ol 

Se  TpiTTjv,  TT)v  x*P'v  toy  aytou  HveO|AaTo;.  » 

5.  Adv.  Noet.,  15. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  53 

for  a  trinity  of  persons'.  Divine  unity  excludes  division, 
but  it  does  not  exclude  a  distinction  of  persons2.  After 
appealing  to  these  principles  and  developing  them,  Ter- 
tullian  makes  the  following  grand  profession  of  faith  : 
«  We  make  between  God  and  his  Word  the  distinction  of 
Father  and  Son,  and  we  hold  that  they  are  two...  and 
three  with  the  Holy  Ghost.  Without  the  slightest  doubt, 
they  are  not  two  Gois,  or  two  Lords,  even  though  the 
Father  is  God,  the  Son  is  God,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  is  God  — 
though  each  of  them  is  God.  Nor  is  God  only  one  person, 
as  would  be  the  case  had  the  Father  himself  come  into  the 
world;  but  he  who  has  appeared  to  us  and  whom  we  confess 
to  be  God,  is  Christ;  he  is  not  the  same  as  the  Father,  and 
the  Holy  Ghost  is  still  another  and  a  third  person.  But  the 
name  God,  and  Lord,  is  common  to  each;  they  are  but  one 
God3  ». 

Modalism  in  the  East.  —  Sabellianism  developed  also 


1.  Adv.  Prax.,  11  :  Cuslodiatur  (economise  sacramenlum,  qux  unitatem 
in  trinilatem  disponit,  tres  dirigens,  Patremet  Filium  et  Spirilum  Sanctum. 
Tres  autem  non  slatu,  sed  gradu;  nee  substantial,  sed  forma;  nee  potestate, 
sed  specie  :  unius  autem  substantix,  et  unius  status,  et  unius  potestalis ; 
quia  unus  Deus,  ex  quo  et  gradus  isti  et  formx  et  species,  in  nomine  Palris 
et  Filii  et  Spiritus  Sancli  deputantur. 

2.  Adv.  Prax.,  ix  :  Ecce  enim  dico  alium  esue  Patrem,  et  alium  Filium, 
et  alium  Spiritum.  Male  accipit  idioles  quisque  aut  perversus  hoc  dictum, 
quasi  diversitatem  sonet,  el  ex  diversitate  separationem  prolendat,  Patrix 
et  Filii  et  Spirilus.  Necessitate  autem  hoc  dico,  cum  eumdem  Patrem  et 
Filium  et  Spiritum  conlendunl,  adversus  ccconomiam  monarchix  adnlantes, 
non  tame  n  diversifale  alium  Filium  a  Patre,  sed  dislribulione ;  nee  divisione 
alium,  sed  distinctione,  quia  non  sit  idem  Pater  et  Filius,  vel  modulo 
alius  ab  alio.  Pater  enim  tola  subslantia  est  :  Filius  vero  derivalio  totius 
el  portio...  Sic  et  Pater  alius  a  Filio,  dum  Filio  major;  dum  alius  qui 
general,  alius  qui  generatur;  dum  alius  qui  miltil,  alius  qui  miltilur ;  dum 
alius  qui  facit,  alius  per  quern  fit.  Bene  quod  et  Mominus  usus  hoc  verbo  in 
persona  Paraclcli,  non  divisionem  signiftcavit,  sed  disposilionem  :  «  Rogabo 
enim,  inquit  Joan.,  xiv,  16,  Patrem,  et  alium  advocatum  millet  vobis,  Spi- 
rilum  veritatis.  » 

3.  Adv.  Prax.,  im. 


54  GOD 

in  the  East,  the  doctrine  of  Sabellins  thus  returning  to  the 
land  of  its  birth,  where  no  doubt  it  always  had  some 
supporters.  But  then  it  took  on  a  more  philosophical 
form,  which  is  properly  called  modalism.  The  dogma  of 
three  Persons  in  one  God  was  interpreted  as  nothing  but 
a  series  of  manifestations,  or  transitory  irradiations,  of  but 
one  and  the  same  divine  substance,  in  the  transitory  modes 
of  the  same  substance.  The  Modalists  held  that  there  is  but 
one  God;  but  that  this  God,  having  manifested  himself  to 
men  chiefly  in  three  ways,  took  three  corresponding  names. 
In  the  Old  Testament,  he  manifested  himself  as  Lawgiver; 
hence,  God  the  Father.  In  the  New  Testament,  he  mani- 
fested himself  in  human  form  as  our  Redeemer;  hence,  God 
the  Son.  And  the  Holy  Ghost  designates  God  in  his  mani- 
festation as  the  Sancfifier  of  souls. 

The  Struggle  against  Modalism;  Origen1  and  St.  Denis 
of  Alexandria2.  —  Origen  combated  Modalism  in  several 
of  his  writings.  There  are  some,  said  he,  who  hold  that 
the  Father  and  the  Son  are  but  different  modalities  of  one 


1.  Origen  was  born  of  Christian  parents  in  the  year  185  or  186,  probably 
at  Alexandria.    A  disciple  of  Clement  of  Alexandria,  al  the  age  of  eighteen,  he 
succeeded  his  master  as  director  of  the  catechetical  school,  where  he  displayed 
great  activity.    While  on  a  journey  to  Caesarea,  he  was  ordained  priest  unknown 
to  the  bishop  of  Alexandria.     On  his  return  he  was  declared  degraded  from  his 
position  in  the  school  and  from  the  priesthood.    He  then  took  up  his  residence 
at  Caesarea,  where  he  established  a  school  of  theology,  which   became  quite 
nourishing.    One  of  the  most  famous  disciples  of  this  new  school  was  St.  Gre- 
gory, surnamed  Thaumaturgus.    Origen  died  in  the  year  254  or  255,  as  a  result 
of  the  torments  he  underwent  during  the  persecution  of  Decius. 

2.  St.  Denis  of  Alexandria  was  born,  probably  at  Alexandria,  about  the 
year  200.    In  this  city,  he  followed  Oiigen's  teaching;  and  in  the  year  231  or  232, 
be  succeeded  Heracles  as  director  of  the  catechetical  school.    Heracles  was  the 
successor  of  Origen  in  this  position,  but  he  held  his  place  but  a  few  months,  and 
St.  Denis  remained  at  the  head  of  the  Alexandrian  school  for  more  than  sixteen 
years.    His  teaching  won  for  him  the  name  of  Great.    Though  he  was  made 
bishop  of  Alexandria,  he  still  continued  his  teaching.    He  died  at  the  time  of 
the  first  synod  of  Alexandria,  in  the  year  264  or  265. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  55 

and  the  same  substance.  But  they  are  mistaken;  the  Father 
and  the  Son  have,  it  is  true,  the  same  substance,  but  they 
are  numerically  distinct1.  He  likewise  affirms  that  the 
Holy  Ghost  is  distinct  from  both  Father  and  Son  2. 

St.  Denis  of  Alexandria  went  even  further  in  bis  attack 
upon  the  new  doctrine.  To  many  it  seemed  that  in  his 
zeal  he  exaggerated  the  distinction  between  the  Father  and 
the  Son  to  such  an  extent  as  to  subordinate  the  Son  to  the 
Father  in  a  way  that  was  incompatible  with  the  absolute 
divinity  of  the  Son.  When  called  upon  by  Pope  St.  Denis 
to  explain,  he  did  so  in  a  letter  in  which  he  showed  that 
the  heterodox  tendencies  imputed  to  him  were  to  be  found 
only  in  certain  exaggerated  formulas  which  he  had  used 
in  his  refutation  of  the  heretics.  In  a  memoir  drawn  up 
in  justification  of  St.  Denis  of  Alexandria,  St.  Athanasius 
says  that  St.  Denis  spoke  «  economically  »,  -/.aT7  otxovc;j.(av, 
after  the  manner  of  the  Apostles,  insisting  emphatically 
upon  the  truth  which  he  wished  to  inculcate3. 

Paul  of  Samosata  and  the  Synod  of  Antioch.  —  So 
far  the  Sabellians  had  at  heart  the  defense  of  the  divinity 
of  Christ,  and  they  identified  him  with  the  Father  in  order 
the  better  to  show  that,  together  with  the  Father,  he  was 
but  one  God.  Paul  of  Samosata,  bishop  of  Antioch,  realized 
that  Christ  could  not  be  God  unless  he  was  of  one  and  the 
same  personal  substance  with  God,  consubstantial  (op-oouaio?) 
with  God4.  As  this  seemed  impossible  to  him,  he  held 


1.  In  Joan.,  t.  X,  21 ;  P.  G.,  XIV,  376. 

2.  In  Joan.,  t.  II,  6. 

3.  De  Sent.  Dion.,  6-12;  P.  G.,  XXV,  488-497. 

4.  According  to  Ihe  theology  of  Paul  of  Samosata,  Christ  could  not  be  God 
unless  he  be  but  one  and  the  same  person,  or  substance  (he  considered  these 
two  terms  as  absolutely  synonymous)  with  God.    Now,  this  cannot  be.    There- 
fore, be  concluded,  Christ  is  not  God.    According  to  the  system  of  the  bishop 
of  Anlior.ii.  the  word  6[Aooyuio;  had  a  modalist  meaning.    Hence  it  was  that  the 
Fathers  of  the  council  of  Antioch  rejected  the  term  6|toou<no;.    Cf.  J.  IUKRONT, 
History  of  Dogmas,  I,  p.  403404. 


56  GOD. 


that  Christ  was  nothing  but  a  man  invested  with  a  divine 


mission 


Following  is  a  complete  exposition  of  his  doctrine  : 
There  is  in  God  but  one  person  (zpiawzcv  ev) ;  in  him  we 
distinguish  principally  reason  (XOY°?)>  which  is  nothing  but 
a  simple  attribute  without  personality  (avuTroaTa-rc;).  We  say 
that  this  Logos  was  engendered  by  the  Father,  and  that 
he  is  the  Son  of  God;  but  this  is  just  a  way  we  have  of 
speaking.  It  is  the  Logos,  however,  that  spoke  and  acted 
through  the  prophets,  and  above  all  in  Jesus,  the  Son  of 
Mary.  Chosen  by  God  in  a  very  special  manner  to  be  the 
agent  of  his  Logos,  Jesus  was  possessed  of  an  eminently 
supernatural  character.  By  his  sufferings  he  redeemed  the 
world;  and  as  a  recompense  God  gave  him  a  name  which 
is  above  all  other  names,  made  him  judge  of  the  living  and 
the  dead,  and  clothed  him  with  a  dignity  wholly  divine, 
so  in  one  sense  we  are  justified  in  calling  him  God2. 

Firmilian,  bishop  of  Cappadocia,  and  Gregory  of  Caesarea, 
who  was  soon  to  be  called  Gregory  Thaumaturgus  together 
with  several  other  bishops,  went  to  Antioch  with  the  intention 
of  putting  an  end  to  the  heresy.  Denis  of  Alexandria  was  also 
asked  to  come;  but  owing  to  his  extreme  old  age,  he  was 
unable  to  attend,  so  he  contented  himself  with  writing  a 
letter  to  the  Church  at  Antioch.  The  first  synod  held 
at  Antioch  amounted  to  nothing.  Paul,  subtle  and  dis- 
tinguished quibbler  as  he  was,  succeeded  in  evading  con- 
demnation. But  in  another  synod,  held  in  267  or  268,  he 
was  convicted  of  heresy,  deposed  and  excommunicated. 
Upon  his  refusing  to  submit,  the  emperor  Aurelian  intervened 
and  enforced  the  sentence  of  the  council. 


1.  Paul  of  Sarnosata's  views  on  God  and  Christ  are  very  nearly  like  the 
views  of  Unitarian  Protestants. 

2.  EPIPHAN.,  Haer.,  LXV,   1-7;  P.  G.,  XLII,  13-24.  —  EUSEB.,  Hist,  eccl., 
1.  VII,  XXVH,  2;  xxx,  11. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  57 

St.  Gregory  Thaumaturgus.  —  Chosen  disciple  of  Origen 
at  Caesarea,  adversary  of  Sabellianism  and  of  the  doctrines 
of  Paul  of  Samosata,  and  bishop  of  Neo-Caesarea,  St.  Gregory 
Thaumaturgus  was  always  looked  upon  by  the  Greeks  as  the 
highest  authority  at  the  end  of  the  third  century.  There  is 
extant  of  his,  a  remarkable  exposition  of  Trinitarian  faith, 
drawn  up  about  the  year  265  : 

«  One  God,  Father  of  the  living  Logos,  of  Wisdom  sub- 
sistent,  of  Power,  of  the  Impress  of  the  eternal  :  the  Perfect 
engendering  the  Perfect ;  the  Father  of  the  only  Son. 

«  One  Lord,  one  from  a  single  one,  God  of  God  :  the 
Impress  and  the  Image  of  the  Divinity  :  the  efficacious  Word, 
the  Wisdom  which  embraces  the  disposition  of  all  things, 
the  efficient  cause  of  all  Creation  :  the  true  Son  of  the  true 
Father,  invisible  of  the  invisible,  incorruptible  of  the  incor- 
ruptible, immortal  of  the  immortal,  eternal  of  the  eternal. 

«  And  one  Holy  Ghost,  receiving  his  existence  from  God, 
and  manifested  by  the  Son  :  perfect  Image  of  the  perfect  Son, 
Life  which  is  the  cause  of  life,  the  source  of  holiness,  holiness 
producing  sanctification  :  in  whom  is  revealed  God  the  Fa- 
ther, who  is  above  all  things  and  in  all  things,  and  the  Son, 
through  whom  are  all  things. 

«  A  perfect  Trinity,  divisible  or  separable  neither  in 
glory,  nor  in  eternity,  nor  in  royalty. 

«  There  is  nothing  in  the  Trinity,  that  is  created  or 
servile,  nothing  adventitious,  nothing  which  did  not  exist 
from  the  first,  but  came  only  afterwards.  Never,  therefore, 
was  the  Son  wanting  to  the  Father,  or  the  Holy  Ghost  to 
the  Son  :  but  always  the  same  Trinity,  immutable  and 
inalterable1.  » 

Modalism  and  Arianism  at  the  Beginning  of  the  Fourth 
Century.  —  Arius  was  born  at  Alexandria  about  256.  Having 


I.  Quoted  in  GREG.  NYSS.,  De  Vila  S.  Greg,  thaum.,  P.  C.,  XLVI,  910. 


58  GOD. 

become  a  priest,  he  was  appointed  in  313  by  bishop  Alexan- 
der to  the  church  at  Baucalis. 

Alexander  was  wont  to  assemble  the  priests  of  his  church, 
for  the  purpose  of  giving-  them  doctrinal  and  disciplinary 
instructions.  In  those  days  of  religious  ferment,  this  was  a 
most  salutary  measure.  But  one  day,  after  the  bishop  had 
exposed  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity,  Arius  thought  he  saw 
Sabellian  tendencies  in  the  bishop's  teaching;  and  accor- 
dingly he  told  him  of  this  in  public.  The  bishop  explained, 
but  Arius  was  not  convinced.  He  was  obstinate  in  his 
views;  he  held  that  the  Son  was  so  distinct  from  the  Father 
as  to  be  inferior  to  him  in  substance,  that  the  Son  was  not 
eternal,  but  only  the  first  creature  of  the  Father.  Whatever 
did  not  agree  with  his  teachings,  Arius  stigmatized  as  Sabel- 
lian. This  was  the  origin  of  the  heresy  that  was  to  bear  the 
name  of  Arius. 

From  this  time  on,  the  Sabellian  and  the  Modalist  con- 
troversies became  of  minor  importance.  All  effort  was  con- 
centrated upon  showing  that  the  Son  is  God  absolutely,  as 
well  as  the  Father.  The  terms  Sabellianism  and  Modalism 
were  no  longer  used  except  by  the  Arians,  who  so  designated 
the  doctrines  of  those  who  opposed  them. 

Let  us  remark,  however,  that  the  Fathers  of  the  council 
of  Nicaeain  condemning  Arianism,  framed  their  definition  of 
the  dogma  of  the  Trinity  so  as  to  reach  the  Sabellians  as 
well.  The  very  foundation  of  the  symbol  which  they  drew 
up,  which  we  shall  examine  later,  is  the  existence  of  one 
God  in  three  Persons.  The  term  Person  was  not  used,  but 
the  Fathers  defined  very  clearly  what  they  meant  when 
they  said  that  in  God,  the  Father,  the  Son  and  the  Holy 
Ghost  are  really  distinct. 

§  IV. 

THEOLOGY    OF   ST.   THOMAS. 

St.  Thomas' Precursors.  — St.  Thomas  follows  directly 
in  the  footsteps  of  St.  Augustine,  whose  views  he  adopts. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  59 

Of  these,  however,  he  makes  a  synthesis,  and  expresses  them 
with  greater  precision  and  greater  depth. 

When  St.  Augustine  came  upon  the  field,  the  great 
struggle  with  Arianism  was  at  an  end.  The  illustrious  bishop 
of  Hippo  was  less  concerned  about  fighting  adversaries  than 
searching  into  the  mystery.  In  his  exposition  *,  he  starts 
with  the  divine  essence,  one,  simple,  and  indivisible,  and 
shows  how  this  essence  is  expanded  —  not  by  superiority  of 
nature,  nor  priority  of  time,  but  merely  in  the  order  of 
origin  —  into  three  persons  who  are  really  distinct.  But 
what  is  the  nature  of  these  three  persons  who  though  really 
distinct,  do  not  destroy  indivisible  unity  or  divine  simplicity? 
They  are  relations  not  to  be  confounded  with  substance,  since 
they  are  nothing  absolute,  yet  they  cannot  be  called  acci- 
dents, since  they  are  essential  to  the  divine  nature  and  are 
eternal  and  necessary,  like  this  nature. 

lu  expounding  the  Trinity,  St.  Augustine  looks  to  the 
world  about  him  for  images  and  analogies.  There  is  nothing 
surprising  about  this ;  for,  since  all  things  were  created  by 
the  Trinity,  is  it  not  natural  that  these  things  should  bear  the 
impress  of  the  Trinity  upon  them?  The  human  soul,  the 
most  perfect  creation  after  the  angels,  bears  striking  evidence 
of  its  divine  origin.  So,  too,  the  immanent  operations  of  our 
intellect  and  of  our  will,  which  make  up  our  intellectual 
life,  are  pressed  into  service  as  symbols  of  the  divine  life. 
The  Son  is  Son  by  the  very  fact  that  he  is  the  Word,  which 
proceeds  from  the  intellect  of  the  Father  —  this  is  truly 
generation.  The  Holy  Ghost  proceeds  from  the  conjoint 
love  of  the  Father  and  the  Son. 

In  this  doctrine,  the  principal  elements  of  the  synthe- 
sis of  St.  Thomas  are  recognizable.  We  may  add  that  the 
Trinitarian  theology  of  St.  Augustine,  before  being  studied  by 
St.  Thomas,  was  used  by  the  Master  of  the  Sentences  and  by 


1.  De  Trinit.,  I  V-XV. 


60  GOD. 

Albert  the  Great.  The  latter  was  the  incomparable  master 
of  the  Angel  of  the  School,  who  for  a  long  time  closely 
adhered  to  the  teaching  of  the  former. 

Principles  of  the  Thomistic  Synthesis.  —  St.  Thomas 
starts  with  the  revealed  truth  that  there  are  two  processions 
in  God.  We  learn  from  the  Sacred  Books  that,  from  all 
eternity,  God  the  Father  begets  a  Son,  and  that  the  Holy 
Ghost  proceeds  from  the  Father  and  the  Son.  These  proces- 
sions, immanent  in  God,  St.  Thomas  studies  by  comparison 
with  the  principal  operations  of  our  intellectual  life,  viz., 
thought  and  love.  The  procession  of  the  Son  he  compares 
to  thought;  that  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  to  love l. 

From  the  fact  of  the  divine  processions,  St.  Thomas  rea- 
sons to  the  existence  of  real  relations2.  In  fact,  each 
procession  in  God  constitutes  two  actual  relations.  The 
procession  of  the  Word  by  the  act  of  thought-generation, 
establishes  an  active  relation  between  the  Father  and  the 
Son,  and  a  passive  relation  between  the  Son  and  the  Father. 
The  procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost  by  the  joint  love  of  the 
Father  and  the  Son,  sets  up  an  active  relation  of  the  Father 
and  Son  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  a  passive  relation  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  with  the  persons  of  Father  and  Son.  Hence,  the 
two  processions  in  God  are  the  bases  of  four  real  relations  : 
paternity  and  filiation,  and  active  and  passive  spiration  3. 


1.  Sum.  theol.,   I",  q.  xxvii,  a.  1  and  2;   q.  xxxvn,  a.  1  and  2.  We  shall 
farther  on  return  to  St.  Thomas'  doctrine  on  the  nature  of  the  divine  proces- 
sions. 

2.  Relation  in  general  is  defined  as  the  being  such  and  such  with  regard  or 
respect  to  some  other  thing  :  Respectus  alicujus  ad  aliquid,  ut  ad  lerminum. 
The  relations  which  we  study  here  are  all  based  on  an  action  emanating  from  a 
principle  and  tending  to  a  term  only  virtually  distinct  from  the  substance  of  the 
principle.    They  consist  either  in  an  active  relation  between  the  principle  and 
the  term,  or  in  a  passive  relation  between  the  term  and  the  principle. 

3.  Sum.   theol.,  I*,    q.    xxvm,  a.  4  :  Secundum  quamlibet  autem  pro- 
cessionem  oportet  duas  accipere  relationes  oppositas,  quorum  una  sit  pro- 
cedentis  a  principle,  et  alia  ipsius  principii.    Processio  autem  Verbi  dicitur 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  61 

In  creatures,  real  relations,  whether  considered  as  to 
their  foundations  or  as  to  the  related  beings  themselves,  are 
all  accidents.  This  cannot  be  with  God,  for  in  Him  there 
are  no  accidents.  If  we  examine  these  real  relations  as  to 
their  foundations,  we  find  that  they  are  one  with  the  divine 
substance ;  and  if  we  look  at  their  relative  being,  we  find 
that  they  are  only  virtually  distinct  from  the  divine  sub- 
stance *.  Though  the  real  relations  in  God,  be  only  virtually 
distinct  from  the  substance,  those  relations  which  are  opposed 
the  one  to  another  are  really  distinct  from  one  another2. 

Viewed  concretely,  person  is  a  rational  substance  so 
individualized  as  to  be  distinct  from  all  other  substances, 
and  hence  incommunicable.  Viewed  abstractly,  person,  or 
personality,  is  that  determination  which  individualizes  ra- 
tional substance  to  such  an  extent  as  to  make  it  completely 


generatio  secundum  propriam  rationem  qua  compelit  rebus  viventibus. 
Relatio  autem  principii  generationis  in  viventibus  perfectis  dicitur  paterni- 
las ;  relatio  vero  procedentis  a  prindpio  dicitur  filiatio.  Processio  vero 
amoris  non  habet  nomen  proprium,  wide  neque  relationes  qux  secundum 
ipsam  accipiuntur.  Sed  vocatur  relatio  principii  hujus prccessionis  spiratio 
[seu  spiralio  activa];  relatio  aulem  procedentis  processio  [sen  spiratio 
passira], 

\.  Sum.  theol.,  1",  q.  xxvm,  a.  2  :  Quicquid  autem  in  rebus  creatis  habet 
esse  accidenlalc,  secundum  quod  transfertur  in  Deum,  habet  esse  sub- 
stantiate :  niliil  enim  est  in  Deo  ut  accidens  in  subjecto  ;  sed  quicquid  est  in 
Deo,  est  ejus  essenlia.  Sic  igilur  ex  ea  parte  qua  relatio  in  rebus  creatis  habet 
esse  accidentale  in  subjecto,  relatio  realiter  existens  in  Deo  habet  esse 
cssenlix  diviiix,  idem  omnino  ei  exislens.  In  hoc  vero  quod  ad  aliquid  dici- 
tur, non  siynificalur  aliqua  habiludo  ad  essentiam  sed  magis  ad  suum 
oppositum.  El  sic  manifestum  est  quod  relatio  realiter  exislens  in  Deo  est 
idem  essentix  secundum  rent,  et  non  differt  nisi  secundum  inlelligentix 
rationem,  proul  in  relatione  importatur  respeclus  ad  suum  opposilum,  qui 
non  importatur  in  nomine  essentix.  Patet  ergo  quod  in  Deo  non  est  aliud 
esse  relalionis  el  essentix,  sed  unum  et  idem. 

2.  Ibid.,  a.  3  :  Exeo  quod  aliquid  alicui  atlribuilur,  oportet  quod  allri- 
buanlur  ei  omnia  qux  sunl  de  ralione  illius.  Sicut  cuicumque  attribuilur 
homo,  oportet  quod  altribuatur  et  esse  rationale.  De  rations  aulem  rela- 
tionis  est  respeclus  unius  ad  allerum,  secundum  quern  aliquid  alteri  oppo- 
nitur  relative.  Cum  igitur  in  Deo  realiter  sit  relalio,  oportet  quod  realiter 
sit  ibi  opposilio.  fielativa  autem  oppositio  in  sui  ratione  includit  distinc- 
tionem.  Unde  oportet  quod  in  Deo  sit  realis  dislinclio,  non  quidem  secun- 


C2  GOD. 

distinct  from  all  other  substances,  and  hence  incom- 
municable1. 

Now,  in  the  Godhead,  only  the  relations  of  origin  are 
really  distinguishing  :  Distinctio  in  divinis  non  fit  nisi 
per  relationem  originis  2.  Hence  it  must  be  these  relations 
of  origin  that  constitute  persons  in  the  Godhead. 

But  we  have  admitted  four  real  relations  in  the  God- 
head. Are  there  also  four  persons?  No;  for,  in  order  to 
constitute  a  person,  a  real  relation  must  be  distinct  from  the 
other  relations;  and  it  cannot  be  distinct  from  them  unless 
it  be  opposed  to  them.  Now.  of  the  four  relations,  active 
spiration  is  indeed  opposed  to  passive  spiration,  and  that  is 
enough  to  make  it  a  real  relation;  but  it  is  common  to  both 
Father  and  Son,  and  honce,  the  dislinction  required  to  con- 
stitute a  person  is  not  realized.  So,  in  the  Godhead,  there 
are  only  three  persons,  neither  more  nor  less  3. 

dum  rem  absolufam,  qux  est  essentia,  in  qua  est  summa  unitas,  et  simpli- 
cilaf,  sed  secundum  rem  relativam. 

1.  Cf.  supra,  pp.  9-10. 

2.  Sum.  theol.,  I",  q.  xxix,  a  4. 

3.  Sum.  theol.,  I*,  q.  ixx,  a.  2  :  Plures  person*  sunt  plures  relationes 
subsistentes  ab   invicem  realiter  distinctae.    Realis  autem  distinctio  inter 
relationes  divinas  non  est  nisi  ratione  oppositionis  relativae.    Ergo  oportet 
duas  relationes  opposilas  ad  duas  personas  pertinere.    Si  quae  autem  re- 
lationes opposite  non  sunt,  ad  eamdem  personam  necesse  est  eas  perti- 
nere.   Paternitas  ergo,  et  filiatio,  cum  sint  oppositae  relaliones,  ad  duas 
personas  ex  necessitate  pertinent.    Paternilas  igitur  subsistens  est  persona 
Palris,  et  filiatio  subsislens  est  persona  Filii.    Alise  autem  dux  relationes 
ad  neutram  harum  oppositionem  habent,  sed  sibi  invicem  opponuntur. 
Impossibile  est  igitur  quod  ambx  uni  personx  convenient.    Oportet  ergo 
quod  vel  el  una  earum  conveniat  utrique  dictarum  personarum,  out  quod 
una  uni,  et  alia  alii.    Non  autem  potest  esse  quod  processio  conveniat  Pa- 
tri,  et  Filio,  vel  alteri  eorum  :  quia  sic  sequeretur  quod  processio  intellec- 
tus  prodiret  ex  processione  amoris,  secundum  quam  accipitur  spiralio  et 
processio,  si  persona  generans  et  genita  procederent  a  spirante  :  quod  est 
impossibile.    Relinquitur  ergo  quod  spiratio  conveniat  et  persons  Patris  et 
persons  Filii,  ulpote  nullam  habens  oppositionem  relativam  nee  ad  pater- 
nitatem,  nee  ad  filiationem  :  et  per  consequens  oporletquod  conveniat  pro- 
cessio alteri  personx,  qux  dicitur  persona  Spiritus  Sancti,  qua?  per  modum 
amoris  procedit.     Relinquitur  ergo  tantum  Ires  personas  esse  in  divinis, 
scilicet  Patrem,  el  Filium,  et  Spiritum  Sanctum. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  63 

Like  the  relations  of  origin,  the  divine  persons  are 
really  distinct  from  one  another,  though  they  are  identical 
with  one  and  the  same  substance  ;  or,  to  put  it  more  exactly, 
though  they  are  only  virtually  distinct  from  one  and  the 
same  substance1. 

The  Thomistic  Synthesis.  —  Personality  is  that  which 
distinguishes  one  rational  substance  from  another  in  such  a 
way  that  it  renders  it  incommunicable.  What,  then,  con- 
stitutes personality  in  God?  Owing  to  its  infinite  perfection 
and  simplicity,  there  can  be  in  the  Godhead  no  other  prin- 
ciple of  distinction  than  that  constituted  by  the  relations 
of  origin.  The  divine  persons  are  what  constitutes  the  dis- 
tinction between  these  relations.  How  many  relations  are 
there  in  God?  The  Father  begets  the  Son  from  all  eter- 
nity; and  from  the  Father,  in  as  much  as  he  begets  the 
Son,  proceeds  the  Holy  Ghost.  Hence,  there  are  only  three 
relations  of  origin  distinct  from  one  another,  viz.,  pater- 
nity, by  which  the  Father  begets  the  Son;  filiation,  by 
which  the  Son  is  begotten  by  the  Father;  and  spiration,  by 
which  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeds  from  the  Father  through  His 
begetting  a  Son.  These  relations  are  such  that  none  can 
exist  without  the  other  two.  Hence,  when  you  say  Father, 
you  include  Father  engendering  the  Son;  and,  as  a  result 
of  that  act,  producing  the  Holy  Ghost.  These  relations  are 
eternal  and  constitute  the  very  life  of  God.  There  are,  then, 
three  persons  in  God,  and  these  are  really  distinct,  since 
they  express  three  really  distinct  relations  of  origin. 

The  divine  relations,  however,  are  not  like  human  re- 
lations, which  are  but  accidents  inhering  in  the  substance 
and  really  distinct  from  it.  Owing  to  the  infinite  simplic- 
ity and  perfection  of  the  divine  reality,  there  can  be  no 


1.  On  the  different  points  that  hare  been  treated  of  in  this  lesson,  see  the 
remarkable  Commentary  of  BIOM'KNSICRE,  In  /•"  Pattern  Sum.  tficol.,  q.  xxvm 
pp.  131-195. 


64  GOD. 

such  thing  as  substance  and  accidents;  and  of  course  there 
can,  for  a  greater  reason,  be  no  distinction  between  sub- 
stance and  accident.  God  is  substance  according  to  his  en- 
tire being.  Hence  the  relations  of  paternity,  filiation,  and 
spiration  which,  in  God,  form  the  constituent  elements  of 
person  are  substantial  relations  which  can  be  only  virtually 
distinct  from  the  divine  substance. 

Such  being  the  case,  we  can  readily  admit  that  there 
are  three  persons  in  God,  without  endangering  the  divine 
unity;  but  to  see  how  these  three  persons,  only  virtually 
distinct  from  the  divine  substance,  can  be  really  distinct 
from  one  another,  is  difficult.  St.  Thomas  here  observes 
that  it  is  their  virtual  distinction  from  the  divine  substance 
that  makes  this  real  distinction  between  the  three  persons 
possible1.  It  were  better,  perhaps,  to  fall  back,  in  such  a 
strait,  upon  the  analogical  character  of  our  concepts  of  God 
and  of  all  the  terms  we  use  in  speaking  of  Him.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  that  is  the  last  word  that  can  be  said  on  the 
subject. 

The  dogma  of  the  Blessed  Trinity  eventually  comes 
to  the  mere  statement  of  this  ineffable  mystery.  The  Father 
begets  a  Son,  and  in  this  generation  communicates  to  him 
his  whole  substance;  and  the  Father  and  the  Son  in  turn  give 
their  entire  substance  to  the  Holy  Ghost.  But,  as  the  Son 
receives  all  the  substance  of  the  Father,  so  he  renders  again 
to  the  Father  all  this  substance ;  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  receiv- 
ing all  the  substance  of  both  Father  and  Son,  likewise 


1.  Sum.  theol.,  Ia,  q.  xxvin,  a.  3,  ad  /um  :  Quaccumque  uni  et  eidem 
sunt  eadem,  sibi  invicem  sunt  eadem,  in  his  qua;  sunt  idem  re  et  ratione, 
sicut  tunica  et  indumentum;  non  autem  in  his  quse  differunt  ratione. 
Unde,  licet  actio  sit  idem  motui,  similiter  et  passio ;  non  tamen  sequitur 
quod  actio  et  passio  sint  idem  :  quia  in  aclione  importatur  respectus,  ut  a 
quo  est  molus  in  mobili,  in  passione  ve.ro,  ut  qui  est  ab  alio.  Et  similiter 
licet  paternitas  sit  idem  secundum  rem  cum  essenlia  divina,  et  similiter 
filiatio;  tamen  hsec  duo  in  suis  propriis  rationibus  important  oppositos 
respectus.  Unde  distinguuntur  ab  invicem.  Cf.  BUONPENSIKRE,  loc.  laud.,  a. 
2). 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  65 

renders  again  to  them  the  substance  which  he  receives. 
It  is  in  this  mutual  communication  of  life  that  we  see  the 
trinity  of  persons  in  the  Godhead.  The  person  of  the  Father 
consists  in  the  giving  of  his  divine  substance ;  that  of  the 
Son  in  receiving  this  divine  substance  from  his  Father ;  and 
the  person  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  receiving  this  substance 
from  both  Father  and  Son.  Thus,  the  divine  substance  is 
possessed  equally  by  all  three  persons  from  all  eternity1. 

ARTICLE  II 
The   Son  is  God. 

Doctrine  of  the  Church.  —  We  believe  that  the  person 
of  the  Son,  as  well  as  that  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  is  absolutely 
God. 


1.  The  Thomislic  synthesis  starts  with  the  unity  of  the  divine  substance 
and  ascends  to  the  Trinity  of  persons  through  the  processions.  The  reason  for 
saying  that  it  is  the  relations  of  origin  that  constitute  the  divine  persons,  is 
that  otherwise  the  unity  of  the  divine  substance  would  be  at  stake,  and  this  must 
be  safeguarded  at  any  cost. 

Parallel  to  this  synthesis,  which,  as  we  have  said,  proceeds  from  the  prin- 
ciples of  St.  Augustine,  another  system,  was  elaborated  which,  instead  of  start- 
ing from  the  unity  of  the  divine  substance,  first  took  up  the  persons.  It  pro- 
ceeds rather  from  the  theology  of  the  Greek  Fathers.  Its  principal  expounders 
were  Richard  of  Saint  Victor,  Alexander  of  Hales,  and  St.  Bonaventure. 

Richard  of  Saint  Victor  established  his  whole  system  on  these  words  of 
St.  John  :  «  God  is  Love  ».  Now,  love  demands  a  plurality  of  persons  in 
God.  There  is,  then,  in  God  He  that  loves,  and  He  whom  God  judges  worthy 
of  His  love  —  Condignus,  upon  whom  he  has  bestowed  supreme  love  and  who 
returns  that  supreme  love.  And,  besides,  there  is  the  common  Friend  —  Con- 
dilectus.  In  mutual  love,  such  as  is  manifested  among  men,  especially  when 
this  love  is  ardent,  there  is  nothing  rarer,  yet  nothing  more  beautiful,  than  the 
desire  to  have  another  besides  ourselves,  who  is  loved  like  us  by  the  same  one 
that  loves  us,  and  loves  us  supremely.  So,  the  perfection  and  the  consum- 
mation of  the  love  that  exists  between  the  two  persons,  requires  an  associate 
who  will  share  in  their  mutual  love.  According  to  this  view,  the  Holy  Ghost  is 
the  fruit  required  by  the  reciprocal  love  that  reigns  between  the  Father  and 
the  Son.  See  the  complete  exposition  of  this  system  in  Th.  de  RECKON,  op. 
cit.,  Etude  X. 

T.  i.  5 


66  GOD. 

Evidently  this  doctrine  can  be  proved  only  from  texts 
having1  reference  to  the  person  of  the  Son  of  God  and  estab- 
lishing the  fact  that  this  person  is  God.  But  the  texts  refer 
almost  exclusively,  not  to  the  person  of  the  Son,  considered 
in  itself,  but  to  the  person  of  the  Son  made  man,  i.e.,  Christ. 
The  explanation  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  person 
of  the  Son  was  hardly  manifested  in  any  other  way  than  by 
the  revelation  of  the  Son  of  God  made  man. 

Since  such  is  the  case,  it  goes  without  saying  that  we 
shall  be  obliged  to  adapt  ourselves  to  the  circumstances  and 
to  make  no  distinction  between  the  Son  of  God,  engendered 
by  his  Father  from  all  eternity,  and  the  Son  of  God  made 
man  in  1he  womb  of  the  Blessed  ^7irgin,  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

Him  we  believe  to  be  God  absolutely.  We  do  not  hold 
that  he  is  God  in  this  sense,  that  there  is  between  him  and 
God  the  Father  some  transcendental  and  unique  relation  of 
origin  and  holiness;  for  if  this  were  so,  he  would  be  im- 
properly styled  God,  and  would  be  only  deified  to  whatever 
extent  a  simple  creature  can  be  —  he  would  be  only  divine. 
But  we  believe  and  profess  that  the  only  Son  of  God  the 
Father  is  God,  both  before  and  since  the  Incarnation,  just 
as  the  Father  is,  because  the  Father  begot  him  from  all  eter- 
nity by  the  communication  of  His  entire  substance,  because 
he  possesses  that  substance  just  as  the  Father  possesses  it, 
and  because  he  and  the  Father  live  identically  the  same 
divine  life. 

Such  is  the  doctrine  defined  by  the  council  of  Nicea1, 
and  promulgated  again  by  the  great  Christological  councils 
of  Constantinople2,  Ephesus3,  and  Chalcedon4.  It  holds  the 
place  of  paramount  importance  in  the  symbols  of  Nicea  and 


1.  DEKZ.,  54. 

2.  DENZ.,  86. 

3.  DENZ.,  113-124. 

4.  DENZ.,  148. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  67 

Constantinople1,  and  in  that  of  St.  Athanasius2;  and  is  the 
fundamental  dog-ma  of  the  Catholic  Church. 

We  shall  trace  the  origin  of  this  dogma  in  the  Holy 
Scriptures  and  in  the  Tradition  of  the  Fathers. 

§1 

THE  DIVINITY  OF  THE  SOX   ACCORDING  TO  THE  SYNOPTIC    GOSPELS. 

Jesus  the  Messias.  —  During  the  second  half  of  the  last 
century  B.  C.,  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  new  era,  the 
Messianic  hope  fired  the  enthusiasm  of  men  to  the  highest 
pitch3.  Physical  and  social  upheavals  were  looked  for  :  the 


1.  DENZ.,  86. 

2.  DENZ.,  39-40. 

3.  Three  books  mostly  have  preserved  for  us  the  record  of  the  Messianic 
hopes  during  the  years  preceding  the  coming  of  our  Lord.    These  are  the  Book 
of  Henoch,  ch.  xc,  37-38;  the  Psalter  of  Solomon,  xvn-xvm,  cf.  SWKTE,  The 
Old  Testament  in  Greek,  vol.  Ill ;  the  Sibylline  Books,  1.  Ill,  cf.  ALEXANDRIA 
Oracula  sibyllina,  Paris,  1845-1856. 

The  Book  of  Henoch  is  a  collection  of  apocalyptic  tracts  the  dates  of 
which  run  from  the  years  170  to  64  B.  C.  The  original  texts,  which  no  doubt 
was  in  Hebrew,  is  lost;  but  we  have  some  very  early,  and  more  or  less  faith- 
ful, versions  of  them  in  Latin,  Ethiopic,  and  Greek.  The  Psalms  of  Solomon, 
originally  in  Hebrew,  have  come  down  to  us  only  in  the  Greek  version.  It  is 
thought  that  they  were  written  by  a  Pharisee,  between  the  years  70  and  40  B.  C. 
The  Sibylline  Books  contain  oracles  supposed  to  have  come  from  the  mouth  of 
the  Pagan  Sibyll,  though  in  reality  they  were  written  by  a  number  of  authors, 
some  of  whom  were  Pagans,  some  Jews,  and  others  Christians.  The  composi- 
tion is  all  in  Greek  hexameters.  The  third  book  gives  the  Jewish  portion  of 
the  work.  The  first  section,  verses  1-92,  dates  from  the  second  half  of  the  last 
century  B.  C.;  the  second  section,  verses  97-118,  is  older  and  is  usually  placed 
about  the  year  140  B.  C. 

Among  the  writings  of  the  first  century  which  may  be  helpful  in  studying 
the  question  of  the  Messianic  Hope,  it  may  be  well  to  mention  particularly  the 
Assumption  of  Moses,  composed  in  Hebrew  or  Aramaic  (4  B.  C.  —  6  or  7  A.  D.), 
of  which  we  have  only  a  Latin  version  ;  the  Book  of  Jubilees,  written  in  He- 
brew, about  the  same  period,  of  which  we  have  an  Elhiopic  and  a  Latin  ver- 
sion ;  the  Apocalypse  of  Baruch,  composed  in  Hebrew  (50-90  A.  D.),  which  is 
preserved  in  Syriac;  The  Apocalypse  of  Esdras,  known  as  the  Fourth  Book  of 
Ksdras,  composed  either  in  Hebrew  or  in  Greek,  by  a  Jewish  author  (81-96  A. 
D.),  and  preserved  only  in  various  versions ;  the  Latin  version  figures  as  appen- 


68  GOD. 

pangs,  as  it  were,  in  bringing  forth  the  new  order  of 
things.  The  Messianic  king1  was  to  manifest  himself  of  a 
sudden ;  either  that  having  remained  hidden  for  a  number 
of  years2  he  would  present  himself  suddenly,  or  that  he  wras 
to  come  suddenly  on  the  clouds3.  Then  would  he  judge 
between  the  people  of  Israel  and  their  oppressors ;  and 
among  the  people,  between  the  good  and  the  wicked. 
The  wicked  were  to  be  set  apart  and  were  to  un- 
dergo dire  punishment.  Then  was  to  be  inaugurated  the 
Messianic  Kingdom,  which  wras  called  either  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  because  it  \vas  to  be  a  new  Theocracy,  far  superior 
to  the  old  and  governed  by  the  Messias  in  the  name  of  God, 
or  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  —  the  name  «  Heaven  »  was  often 
used  at  that  time  instead  of  the  name  of  God ;  and  this  king- 
dom was  to  come  from  heaven  where  its  head  was  to  reign, 
and  men  were  to  come  into  the  full  realization  of  this  king- 
dom only  after  death  in  this  earthly  habitation,  when  they 
would  enter  into  an  ideal  place  called  heaven.  The  kingdom 
of  God  was  to  extend  over  the  whole  earth,  and  the  Gentiles 
were  to  form  part  of  it;  but  the  kingdom  was  to  belong  in 


dix  in  our  Vulgate;  the  Eighteen  Benedictions,  or  the  Prayer  of  the  Jews, 
70-100  A.  D. ;  the  Targoumim,  an  Aramean  version  paraphrased  from  the  orig- 
inal Hebrew,  the  origin  and  importance  of  which  were  spoken  of  above,  p.  26. 

1.  The  term  Messias,  in  Hebrew  Mashiah,  and  in  Aramean  Meshlsha  means, 
strictly  speaking,  the  Anointed,  or  Sacred  (xpurio;,    Chrislus,   or  Unclus). 
This  title  was  for  a  long  lime  given  to  those  who  had  been  consecrated  kings 
of  Israel  by  holy  unction.    The  expected  Messias,  the  Anointed  of  the  Lord  par 
excellence,  was  looked  upon  by  the  Jews  as  a  king,  or  ralher  as  the  King,  the 
founder  and  supreme  ruler  of  the  new  kingdom,  the  final  and  incomparably  glo- 
rious king,  in  a  word,  as  the   Messias- King.    Cf.   M.  LI:PIN,  Christ  and  the 
Gospel. 

2.  After  consulting  the  Princes  of  the  priests  and  the  Scribes  of  the  people, 
Herod  tells  the  Magi  that  the  Messias  is  to  be  born  at  Bethlehem.  Cf.  MATT.,  11, 
2-6. 

3.  Cf.  HEIVOCH,  XLVI,   LXII.  —  IV  ESDR.,  xm,  3.    These  writings  evidently 
use  DANIEL,  vn,  13.    There  are,   then,   two  traditions  concerning  the  manner 
of  the  Messianic  coming.    This  remark,  especially  pertinent  in  the  study  of  the 
Messianic  Kingdom,  is  otherwise  also  very  important. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  69 

a  special  manner  to  the  children  of  Abraham.  Material 
prosperity  was  to  be  unbounded;  but  this  was  to  be  above 
all  the  Kingdom  of  Holiness,  of  the  Life  of  God  in  the  hearts 
of  men. 

For  the  Mcssias-King  was  to  be  at  the  same  time  the 
great  Prophet.  Himself  free  from  all  sin,  he  was  to  lead 
men  in  the  way  of  justice  and  of  the  fear  of  the  Lord1. 


1.  Psalter  of  Solomon,  xvn,  21-34  : 

a  Look  down,  Lord,  and  make  their  King,  the  Son  of  David,  arise  unto  them, 

«  At  the  time  that  thou  hast  fixed,  O  God,  to  rule  over  thy  servant  Israel, 

«  And  gird  him  with  strength,  that  he  may  reduce  the  unjust  princes, 

«  That  he  may  purify  Jerusalem  of  the  peoples  that  throng  and  destroy  her. 

«  Wise  and  just,  let  him  drive  out  the  sinners  from  thy  inheritance, 

0  Let  him  break  the  insolence  of  the  sinners  as  a  potter's  vase; 

«  With  a  rod  of  iron  let  him  break  to  pieces  all  their  confidence ; 

•••  Let  him  destroy  by  a  word  from  his  mouth  all  the  nations  that  are  immoral  ; 

«  Let  bis  threats  put  the  nations  to  flight  before  him, 

«  Let  him  convict  the  sinners  by  the  thoughts  of  their  (own)  hearts. 

«  And  he  will  unite  again  a  holy  people  whom  he  will  guide  in  justice, 

«  And  he  will  judge  the  tribes  of  the  sanctified  people  through  the  Lord  his 

God, 

«  And  he  will  not  permit  injustice  to  install  itself  again  in  their  midst. 
«  And  no  man  clever  in  doing  evil  will  dwell  amongst  them, 
«  For  he  will  hold  them  all  as  the  children  of  their  God. 
«  And  he  will  distribute  them  in  tribes  over  the  land; 
«  Neither  colonist  nor  stranger  will  dwell  any  more  among  them. 
«  He  will  judge  the  peoples  and  the  nations  in  the  wisdom  of  his  justice. 
«  And  he  will  have  the  peoples  of  the  nations  under  his  yoke  to  serve  him, 
«  And  he  will  give  glory  to  the  Lord  before  the  eyes  of  the  whole  earth, 
«  And  he  will  purify  Jerusalem  and  make  it  holy  again,  as  in  the  beginning. 
«  The  nations  will  come  from  the  ends  of  the  earth  to  see  his  glory, 
«  And  they  will  bring  with  them  as  presents  the  weaklings  (of  Jerusalem), 
«  And  they  will  see  the  glory  of  the  Lord  with  which  God  hath  glorified 

him. 

•  And  he  (reigns)  over  them  as  a  just  king,  instructed  by  God, 
'••  And  in  his  day  there  is  no  injustice  among  them, 
c  For  all  .ire  holy,  and  their  king  is  the  Christ  «  of  »  the  Lord. 
«  For  he  will  not  set  his  hopes  in  horses,  in  knights,  in  bows, 
«  Nor  will  he  have  treasures  of  gold  and  silver  heaped  up  for  war, 
«  Nor  place  his  hopes  in  numbers  against  the  day  of  combat. 
«  The  Lord  himself  is  his  King,  the  hope  of  him  that  is  strong  in  the  confidence 

of  God. 
«  And  he  will  forgive  all  nations  that  are  in  fear  before  him.  » 


70  GOD. 

Moreover,  be  would  surpass  all  other  prophets,  both  for 
the  extent  of  his  revelations  and  the  glory  of  his  miracles. 

Not  only  was  the  Messias  to  be  holy,  but  his  person  was 
to  be  truly  superhuman.  To  him  was  attributed,  before 
his  apparition  on  earth,  a  preexistence  in  heaven.  Chosen 
by  God  from  all  eternity  to  become  the  perfect  King  of  Israel, 
he  lived  in  communion  with  God  a  long  time  before  the 
beginning  of  his  mission1.  But,  while  there  was  a  tendency 
to  regard  the  preexistent  Messias  as  a  person  far  above 
humanity,  there  still  persisted  the  belief  that  he  was  a 
creature  of  God2,  which  avoided  identifying  him  with  God, 
or  even  with  the  Word  of  God3. 

What  attitude  will  Jesus  take  amidst  beliefs  so  inter- 
spersed with  human  considerations?  From  the  beginning  of 
our  Savior's  public  life,  John  the  Baptist  represents  him  as 
the  Messias  entrusted  with  the  fulfilment  of  the  final  judgment 
and  the  establishment  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  This  serves 
as  a  prelude  to  the  manifestations  made  at  the  Baptism  of 
Jesus.  The  Holy  Ghost  coming  'down  upon  him  publicly 
consecrates  him  the  Anointed  one  of  God,  the  Christ,  the 
Messias,  as  is  proclaimed  by  the  voice  from  heaven  which 
says  :  «  This  is  my  beloved  Son4.  »  And  this  solemn  affirm- 
ation is  followed  by  a  sort  of  counter  proof  when  Satan,  sus- 


1.  HENOCII,    cb.  XLVIII,  3  :  «  Before  the  sun  and  the  signs  were  created, 
before  the  stars  of  the  heavens  were  made,  his  name  was  named  before  the  Lord 
of  spirits  » ;  ch.  LXII,  7  :  «  For  before  him  is  hidden  the  Son  of  man,  and  the 
Most  High  keeps  hi ;n  before  his  power  and  reveals  him  to  the  elect  ».    The  IV 
book  of  Esdras  (ch.  XH,  32;  ch.  xni,  24,  52),  and  the  Targoumim  of  Jonathan 
on  Zachary  (ch.  iv,  7),  use  terms  no  less  significant.    On  Ihis  subject,  see  the 
recent  work  of  LACRANGE,  Le  Messianisme  chez  les  Juifs,  pp.  218-224. 

2.  It  is  precisely  because  the  Jews  refused  to  recognize  the  divinity  of  Jesus 
that  they  failed  to  see  in  him  the  Savior.    As  late  as  the  time  of  St.  Justin, 
Tryphon  said,  when  acting  as  the  interpreter  of  the  Jewish  people,  that  the  expected 
Messias  was  to  be  only  a  man  descended  from  man  :  «  IlavTe;  rt\>.zii;  -rbv  xpiarbv 
4v9pwnov  ejj  avOpwTtwv  rcpo;5oxa>(iev  yevTjffecrOat  ».  Dialogue  with  Tryphon,  XLIX. 

3.  Cfr.  J.  LEBRETON,  La  Revelation  du  Fits  de  Dleu,  Etudes  reliyieuses, 
March  1908.  —  Les  Origines  du  dogme  de  la  Trinite,  p.  152. 

4.  MAT.,  in,  17.  —  LUKE,  in,  21-22. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  71 

peeling  that  Jesus  is  the  Messias,  asks  him  to  give  the  charac- 
teristic signs;  and  Jesus  rebukes  him,  but  without  declining 
the  title  of  Messias1.  What  Jesus  refused  Satan,  he  granted 
the  people.  The  promised  Messias  was  to  work  wonders. 
Jesus  multiplies  his  miracles  throughout  his  ministry. 

In  the  meantime  Jesus  makes  some  important  decla- 
rations. In  the  Jewish  mind  the  Kingdom  was  to  appear  with 
the  Messias.  Jesus  declares  that  the  Kingdom  is  come  with 
Him2.  One  day  Jesus  and  his  disciples  were  at  Caesarea,  and 
he  asks  them  :  «  Whom  do  men  say  that  I  am?  »  And  Peter 
answers,  according  to  St.  Matthew3,  «  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the 
Son  of  the  living  God  »  ;  and  according  to  St.  Mark4  :  «  Thou 
art  Christ  »  ;  and  according  to  St.  Luke 5  :  «  Thou  art  the  Christ 
of  God  ».  And  Jesus  gives  Peter  his  approval. 

Peter's  confession  and  the  approval  of  Jesus  positively 
raise  the  veil.  From  this  day  on,  the  allusions  of  the  Savior 
become  more  and  more  frequent.  The  triumphal  entry  into 
Jerusalem  reveals  his  Messianic  dignity.  And  finally,  before 
the  High-priest,  Jesus  affirms  that  he  is  «  the  Christ,  the  Son 
of  God  » ;  and  he  adds  these  words  :  «  Hereafter  you  shall  see 
the  Son  of  man  sitting  on  the  right  hand  of  the  power  of 
God,  and  coming  in  the  clouds  of  heaven6.  » 

From  all  these  testimonies  we  must  conclude  that  Jesus 
thought  himself  to  be  the  Messias  and  that  he  was  willing  to 
be  held  as  such7.  But  if  we  confine  ourselves  to  the  sole 
title  of  Messias  which  Jesus  received  or  attributed  to  himself, 
we  are  not  justified  in  saying  that  he  held  himself  up  as  a 


1.  MAX.,  iv,  1-12.    LUKE,  iv,  1-13. 

'I.  MAT.,  xi,  3-5;  xu,  28;—  LUKE,  vu,  19-21;  II,  20;  XVII,  20-21. 

3.  MAT.,  xvi,  16. 

4.  MARK,  viu,  29. 

5.  I.IKI,  ix,  20. 

G.  MAT.,  xxvi,  64.  —  MARK,  xiv,  62.  —  LUKE,  xxii,  68-69. 

7.  Ilarnack  is  righlly  astounded  to  find  that  a  scholar  such  as  Wcllhausen 
could  doubt  that  Jesus  designated  himself  as  the  Mes&ias.  As  lor  him,  he  believes 
that  in  order  to  arrive  at  such  a  conclusion  one  would  have  to  disjoin  the  Gospel 
narrative.  Cf.  What  is  Christianity,  Lecture  8,  p.  149. 


7:>  GOD. 

Messias  superior  to  the  one  expected  by  his  contemporaries. 
The  name  «  Son  of  man  »  already  had  a  higher  import. 

Jesus,  the  Son  of  Man.  —  The  expression  «  Son  of  Man  » 
is  often  used  in  the  Old  Testament  to  mean  simply  man1. 
Ezechiel  always  uses  it  to  designate  the  prophet  who  had  to 
make  known  the  designs  of  God  -.  It  is  an  humble  appellation 
used  to  mark  the  disproportion  existing-  between  God  and  the 
instrument  of  his  revelations.  Not  so,  however,  in  the  book 
of  Daniel3.  There  the  <c  Son  of  Man  »  means  the  Messianic 
King,  coming  on  the  clouds  of  heaven  and  surrounded  with 
great  glory4. 

Jesus  permitted  himself  to  be  called  the  Messias.  When 
asked  if  he  was  the  Messias,  he  answered  that  he  was.  Yet, 
the  title  by  which  he  preferred  to  be  known  was  that  of  the  Son 
of  man.  What  meaning  did  he  attach  to  this?  According  to 
some  critics,  Jesus  represented  himself  as  the  Son  of  man  met 
with  in  Daniel.  Now ,  this  triumphant  king  was  just  such  a  one 
as  the  people  looked  for  under  the  title  of  Messias.  The  two 
expressions  were  in  fact  synonymous.  And  in  representing 
himself  as  the  Son  of  man,  Jesus  represented  himself  as  the 


1.  Num.,  XXHI,  19.  —  Ps.,  MU,  5.  —  Is.,  LI,  12;  LVI,  2.   —  JER.,  xn.x,  18. 
—  JOB,  xvi,  21;  xxv,  6.  —  Eccli.,  xvn,  25. 

2.  Ezechiel  uses  this  term  80  tiroes. 

3.  DAN.,  VH,  13-14. 

4.  Let  us  observe  that  this  expression  is  frequently  used  in   the  book  of 
Henoch.    It  often  means  only  man;  in  the   book  of  Parables,  ch.  XLVI-LXXI, 
this  expression    means  Messias.    Let  us  cite,    for  example,  the  beginning  of 
chapter  XLVI  :  «  There  I  saw  a  someone  who  had  «  a  head  of  days  »  (God),  and  his 
head  was  like  white  wool ;  and  with  him  was  another  whose  form  resembled  that 
of  a  man.  and  his  form  was  full  of  grace,  as  one  of  the  holy  angels.    I  asked  the 
angel  that  walked  with  me  and  that  taught  me  all  the  secrets  regarding  this  Son 
of  man  :  «  Who  is  he,  and  whence  comes  he;  why  walks  he  with  the  Head  ot 
days?  »    And  he  answered  and  said  :  «  That  is  the  Son  of  man,  who  possesses  jus- 
tice and  with  whom  justice  dwells,  who  will  reveal  all  the  treasures  of  secrets, 
because  the  Lord  of  spirits  has  chosen  him,  and  his  lot  conquered  by  right  before 
the  Lord  of  spirits  for  all  eternity.    The  Son  of  man  whom  you  saw  will  make 
kings  and  the  powerful  arise  from  their  couches  and  the  strong  from  their  seals; 
lie  will  break  the  reins  of  Ihe  strong,  and  will  crush  the  leeth  of  sinner;.  » 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TUINITY.  73 

Messias.  But  at  the  time  that  Jesus  taught,  the  synonymous 
character  of  these  words  was  generally  unknown.  In  re- 
presenting himself  as  the  Son  of  man,  Jesus  wished  to  conceal 
his  Messianic  character.  This  policy  would  permit  him  to 
reveal  himself  rather  by  his  works  and  would  enable  him  the 
more  easily  to  escape  all  tumultuous  and  compromising  ova- 
tions . 

Other  critics  think  that  Jesus,  when  he  represented 
himself  as  the  Son  of  man,  wished  to  have  it  known  that 
he  compared  himself  not  with  the  national  Messias  met  with 
in  Daniel  and  looked  for  by  his  contemporaries,  but  with  the 
servant  of  God,  foretold  in  Isaias,  who  was  to  be  a  man 
of  sorrows,  scorned  and  detested  by  the  people,  and  who,  by 
his  sufferings  and  ignominious  death,  was  to  redeem  the 
multitudes2. 

But  are  not  these  two  opinions  too  restrictive?  Jesus 
indeed  represented  himself  above  all  as  the  Servant  of  God, 
come  into  the  world  to  live  in  humility  and  obedience  even 
to  the  death  of  the  cross,  in  order  to  redeem  man.  But 
immediately  after  his  death  he  was  to  enter  into  glory,  and 
such  glory  as  no  man  ever  conceived.  Through  his  death 
unto  sin  and  resurrection  unto  glory,  all  men,  \vere  to  die 
unto  sin  and  rise  unto  glory.  They  would,  indeed,  have 
wilfully  to  unite  themselves  to  the  life  of  Christ,  to  share  in 
his  death  by  self-denial,  before  participating  in  his  glory. 


1.  Cf.  DALHAN,  Die  Worte  Jesu,  p.  210-217.  A.  HARNACK,  What  is  Christia- 
nity, Led.  8,  p.  82.  —  G.  B.  STEVENS,  The  Theology  of  the  New  Testament, 
p.  51.  —  V.  BOSK.  Studies  on  the  Gospels,  ch.  v,  Son  of  man ;  ch.  vi,  Son  of 
God,  p.  180. 

2.  P.  BATIFKOL,  L'Enseignemenlde  Jesus,  p.  198-199  :  «  The  expression  Son  of 
man  is  related  not  only  to  the  poverty,  the  humility,  and  the  labors  of  Jesus,  but 
also  to  his  passion.    It  thus  calls  up  the  idea  of  (he  servant  of  God,  described  by 
Isaias,    •  a  man  of  sorrows  and  knowing  suflerinx  ».  (Is.,  i.iu,  1-12).    And,  in 
fact,  probably  the  content  of  the  expression  Son  of  man,  as  used  by  Jesus,  em- 
bracos  the  idea  of  servant  of  Yahweh,  whose  death  is  the  ransom  price  of  the 
people.    Ttiis  moaning  surely  excludes  all  idea  of  Messianic  glory  and  of  triumphal 
royalty  ». 


74  GOD. 

This  glorification  of  Christ,  together  with  that  of  those  who 
were  to  be  united  to  him,  was  to  be  accompanied  by  earthly 
catastrophes  surpassing  in  extent  all  that  the  contemporaries 
of  Jesus,  in  their  poetic  language  had  ever  depicted. 

It  seems,  then,  that  in  representing  himself  as  the  Son 
of  man,  Jesus  really  represented  himself  as  the  Messias,  but  a 
Messias  who  be  fore  entering  into  his  glory  was  to  suffer  all  the 
humiliations  of  the  Servant  of  God,  as  predicted  bylsaias1. 

This  explanation  seems  more  in  conformity  with  the 
general  tone  of  the  Gospel  discourses2.  It  must  be  confessed, 
how'ever,  that  whether  one  follows  this  opinion  or  either  of 
the  other  two  which  this  one  seeks  to  reconcile,  we  cannot 
see  in  the  name  Son  of  man,  a  claim  of  the  Divinity.  But 
we  find  it  in  the  title  of  Son  of  God,  to  which  the  Savior 
laid  no  less  formal  claim. 

Jesus  the  Son  of  God.  —  In  the  Old  Testament,  the 
word  «  Son  »,  apart  from  its  proper  and  strict  meaning, 
is  used  to  indicate  all  relations  of  intimacy,  viz. ,  as  those  of 
origin,  of  dependence,  and  of  affection  such  as  exist  between 
father  and  son.  The  expression  «  Son  of  God  »,  in  particular, 
was  applied  to  all  individuals  united  to  God  by  some  close 
relation.  In  Genesis 3,  in  the  Psalms4,  and  in  the  Book  of  Job 5, 
it  is  applied  to  the  angels;  in  the  Psalms6,  it  is  given  to 
magistrates  ;  in  the  book  of  Wisdom7,  it  is  applied  to  the  just. 


1.  Is.  un,  1-12.    The  doctrine  of  a  suffering  Messias,  though  by  no  means 
common  in  the  time  of  our  Lord,  was  nevertheless  not  completely  forgotten.    See 
on  this  point  LAGRANGE,  Le  Messianisme  chez  lesJuifs,  p.  236-256. 

2.  There  is,  it  seems,  but  a  shade  of  difference  between  the  opinion  just 
given  and  that  received  by  W.  SANDAY,  Jesus  Christ  in  Dictionary  of  the  Bible 
H,  p.  625  ;  —  M.  LEPIN,  op.  tit.,  p.  113;  —  J.  TIXERONT,  History  of  Dogmas, 
TOl.  I,  p.  63. 

3.  Gen.,  VH,  1-4. 

4.  Ps.  xxix,  1. 

5.  JOB,  I,  6;  H,  1 ;  xxxvili,  7. 

6.  Ps.  LXXXH,  6-7. 

7.  Wisdom,  H,  13,  18;  v.  5. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  75 

Vet  this  is  not  the  most  common  meaning  of  the  expres- 
sion «  Son  of  God  ».  It  is  more  frequently  the  name  given 
to  the  chosen  people  of  God,  the  Jews1,  and  still  more 
frequently  to  the  king  of  Israel2,  who  is  the  actual  ruler  of  the 
chosen  people,  and  above  all  to  the  great  king  who  was  to 
establish  the  ideal  kingdom.  This  last  meaning  is  the  more 
common  in  the  apocryphal  writings,  where  Son  of  God 
usually  means  the  Messias  whose  coming  was  expected  in  the 
near  future3. 

It  is  of  paramount  importance  to  determine  exactly  the 
signification  of  the  expression  «  Sou  of  God  »  as  used  in  the 
canonical  and  the  apocryphal  books;  for  in  all  probability 
the  contemporaries  of  Jesus  must  have  given  him  this  title 
in  the  sense  which  it  then  had. 

The  Savior  is  called  Son  of  God  by  the  angel  on  the 
day  of  the  Annunciation;  by  a  voice  from  heaven  at  his 
Baptism  and  at  his  Transfiguration;  by  the  devil;  by  his 
own  contemporaries;  and  by  himself.  Let  us  dismiss  the 
instances  when  this  name  was  given  by  the  angel,  by  the 
voice  from  heaven,  and  by  the  devil;  for  the  circumstances 
would  hardly  enable  us  to  determine  the  sense,  and  let  us 
consider  the  name  as  applied  to  Jesus  by  himself  and  by  his 
contemporaries. 

There  is  no  doubt  that,  in  the  minds  of  the  Jews  who 
questioned  our  Savior,  the  two  expressions  «  Son  of  God  » 
and  «  Messias  »  were  synonymous.  There  seems  to  be  room 
for  no  other  interpretation  of  the  terms  used  by  the  president 
of  the  Sanhedrim.  Jesus  was  called  blasphemer  just  because 
he  said  that  he  was  the  Messias,  the  Son  of  God,  and  thereby 
claimed  between  himself  and  God  that  close  relation  which 
the  Anointed  of  God  should  bear  to  the  Father,  whereas  it 


\.  Dtut.  xiv,  1-2.  —  Ex.  vi,  22.  —  08.  XI,  1. 

2.  II  Kings  vn,  li;  —  Ps.  11,  7-1 1;  LXXXIX,  26-27. 

3.  HEjsocir,  cv,  2;  — Solomon's  Psalter,  xvir,  26-3G;  xvm,  8.  —  IV  Esoit. 
Ml,  28-29;  xni,  32. 


76  GOD. 

was  evident,  according  to  the  narrow  views  of  the  high  priest, 
that  Jesus  did  not  possess  the  characteristics  of  the  Messias1. 

Shall  we  interpret  differently  the  texts  containing  the 
confession  of  St.  Peter?  We  have  already  quoted  the  im- 
portant declaration  of  Jesus  :  «  Whom  do  men  say  that  I  am?  », 
I,  the  Son  of  man.  This  Jesus  asks  Peter;  and  the  Apostle 
answers,  according  to  St.  Matthew  :  «  Thou  art  the  Christ, 
the  Son  of  the  living  God2  »,  according  to  St.  Mark  :  «  Thou 
art  the  Christ3  »,  and  according  to  St.  Luke  :  «  Thou  art 
the  Christ  of  God4  ».  Then  Jesus  says  to  him  :  «  Blessed  art 
thou,  Simon  Bar-Jona  :  because  flesh  and  blood  hath  not 
revealed  it  to  thee,  but  my  Father  who  is  in  heaven 5.  »  Then 
the  Savior  promises  to  give  to  Peter  the  keys  of  the  Kingdom 
of  heaven6,  and  he  requests  the  disciples  to  say  nothing  of 
what  they  have  heard  about  him  to  any  man7. 

According  to  some  critics,  we  must  here,  as  elsewhere, 
regard  as  identical  the  two  expressions  Christ,  or  Messias,  and 
Son  of  God.  Their  synonymous  character  is  clearly  shown 
by  the  variants  which  the  evangelists  did  not  hesitate  to 
introduce  into  their  accounts  of  Peter's  answer8.  If  Jesus  told 
Peter  that  he  had  received  what  he  said  not  from  flesh  and 
blood  but  by  the  revelation  of  God,  it  was  because  Peter, 
unlike  the  other  Jews,  saw  in  the  Son  of  man  the  expected 
Messias9.  Peter  had  raised  the  veil  with  which  Jesus  had 
so  far  concealed  his  Messianic  character. 

It  seems  indeed  that  it  is  the  word  with  which  Jesus 
approved  of  Peter's  answer  that  must  throw  light  upon  the 


1.  See  however  the  searching  commentary  of  L\CRANGE  on  MAKK  xiv,  61  and 
LUKE  XXH,  70.  Evangile  selon  saint  Marc,  p.  375. 
1.  MAT.,  xvi,  16. 

3.  MARK,  vm,  29. 

4.  LUKE,  ix,  20. 

5.  MAT.,  xvi,  17. 

6.  MAT.,  xvi,  18-19. 

7.  MAT.,  xvi,  20.  —  MARK,  vm,  30.  —  LUKE,  ix,  21. 

8.  V.  HOSE,  Studies  on  the  Gospels,  ch.  vi,  Son  of  God. 

9.  V.  ROSE,  cb.  v,  Son  of  man,  p.  169. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  77 

true  sense  of  this  passage.  Could  it  be  that  this  solemn  dis- 
course, followed  in  the  first  Gospel  by  so  important  a  promise, 
was  called  forth  by  the  bare  fact  that  Peter  had  put  an  end 
to  the  uncertainty  about  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus?  We  must 
bear  in  mind  that  this  uncertainty  must  by  this  time  have 
been  fairly  well  dispelled,  for  the  voice  from  heaven  on  the 
day  of  his  Baptism,  as  well  as  his  numerous  miracles,  had 
long  since  marked  Jesus  as  the  Messias.  If  the  Savior  tells 
Peter,  then,  that  special  light  from  on  high  was  necessary 
to  enable  him  to  make  the  affirmation  just  mentioned,  it  must 
be  that  the  Apostle  saw  in  his  Master  more  than  the  Messianic 
dignity  expressed  by  the  word  Son  of  God ;  that  is,  he  must 
have  seen  in  him  the  true  Son  of  God1. 

Moreover,  is  it  not  always  under  this  title,  though 
necessarily,  obscure  to  a  Jewish  mind,  that  Jesus  spoke  of 
himself?  If  we  examine  all  the  instances  when  Jesus  spoke 
of  his  relations  with  God,  it  seems  that  this  question  must 
be  answered  in  the  affirmative. 

Thus,  when  he  speaks  of  God  the  Father,  he  never  puts 
himself  on  the  same  level  with  his  disciples.  He  says  «  your 
Father-  »,  and  «  my  Father3  »;  but  never  «  our  Father  ». 
In  some  passages  the  purpose  of  this  antithesis  is  made 
perfectly  clear.  «  Come,  ye  blessed  of  my  Father,  possess  you 
the  kingdom  prepared  for  you  from  the  foundation  of  the 
world4  »,  says  our  Savior  to  the  Apostles;  and  a  little  farther 
on  :  «  I  will  not  drink  from  henceforth  of  this  fruit  of  the 
vine,  until  that  day  when  I  shall  drink  it  with  you  in  the 
kingdom  of  my  Father5  «. 


1.  M.  LEPIN,   Christ  and  the  Gospel,  p.  322-323,   374-375.  —  J.   MAII.IIET, 
Jesus  Fits  de  Dieu,  p.  83. 

2.  MAT.,  V,  16,  45,  48;  vi,  1,  6,  8,  14,  15,  26,  32;  VII,  11 ;  X,  20,  29;  xvm,  14. 

—  MARK,  xi,  25.  —  LUKE,  vi,  3G;  xi,  13;  XH,  30,  32. 

3.  MAT.,  VH,  21  ;x,  32-33;  xil,  50;  xv,  13;  ivi,  27;  XVHI,  10,  19,  35;  xx,  23. 

—  MAHK,  VIH,  38.  —  LIKE,  n,  49;  xxn,  29;  xxiv,  49. 

4.  MAT.,  xxv,  3i. 

5.  Ibid  ,  xxvi,  29. 


78  GOD. 

In  the  parable  of  the  wicked  husbandmen,  the  Savior 
is  still  more  emphatic.  A  householder  having  planted  a 
vineyard,  hired  it  to  some  husbandmen  and  started  on  a 
voyage.  And  at  the  season,  he  sent  his  servants  to  get  the 
fruit  of  the  vineyard.  The  husbandmen  laid  hands  on  them 
and  put  them  to  death.  Then  the  householder  sent  his  son, 
saying  «  They  will  reverence  my  son  ».  But  when  they  saw 
the  son  coming,  they  said  «  Here  is  the  heir;  come,  let  us 
kill  him,  and  we  shall  have  the  inheritance  ».  And  when 
they  had  laid  hands  on  him,  they  killed  him1.  The  Savior's 
idea  is  here  perfectly  clear.  The  servants  sent  by  the  house- 
holder to  the  husbandmen,  by  whom  they  are  put  to  death, 
represent  the  prophets  sent  by  God  and  put  to  death  by  the 
Jews.  The  householder's  own  son,  the  last  to  be  sent,  repre- 
sents Jesus.  He  holds  the  same  position,  as  regards  God  and 
the  prophets,  as  does  the  son  represented  in  the  parable,  as 
regards  ihe  householder  and  the  servants —  he  is  truly  the  Son 
of  God.  Hence  can  he  say  :  «  All  things  are  delivered  to  me 
by  my  Father.  And  no  one  knoweth  the  Son,  but  the  Father  : 
neither  doth  anyone  know  the  Father,  but  the  Son,  and  he 
to  whom  it  shall  please  the  Son  to  reveal  him2  ».  So  trans- 
cendent is  the  person  of  the  Son  that  only  the  Father  knows 
fully  what  he  is ;  and  likewise,  so  transcendent  is  the  person 
of  the  Father  that  only  the  Son  knows  him.  This  mutual 
knowledge  of  each  other  presupposes  between  two  persons 
a  certain  relation  of  equality  which  can  spring  only  from  a 
common,  or  identical  life. 

When  he  proclaims  himself  the  Son  of  God,  therefore, 
Jesus  at  the  same  time  proclaims  his  divinity.  Yet  this  affirm- 
ation, no  matter  how  decisive,  is  less  important  than  is  the 
general  attitude  taken  by  our  Savior  during  Ms  entire  earthly 
existence.  In  fact,  Jesus  always  impressed  himself  upon  the 


1.  MAT.,  xxi,  33-39.  MARK,  xn,  1-12.  LCRE,  xx,  9-15. 

2.  MAT.,  xi,  27. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  79 

people  rather  by  deed  than  by  word.  Words  are  subject  to 
a  variety  of  interpretations,  actions  are  unvarying  in  their 
import. 

Jesus  both  God  and  Man.  —  The  most  striking  feature 
in  the  person  of  our  Savior  is  the  great  contrast  between 
his  profound  humility  and  the  consciousness  of  his  own 
superiority.  He  is  always  modest,  humble,  and  reserved; 
yet  he  declares  that  he  is  greater  than  Moses  or  Elias,  who 
appear  beside  him  at  the  transfiguration1. 

He  is  greater  than  David,  who  calls  him  his  Lord2; 
and  John  the  Baptist,  whom  he  calls  the  greatest  of  the  pro- 
phets, is  only  his  precursor3.  Jesus  represents  himself 
as  superior  even  to  the  angels,  who  are  at  his  service.  At 
the  time  of  his  Passion,  he  says  that  all  he  need  do  is  utter 
a  word  and  his  Father  would  send  him  twelve  legions4. 

They  are  not  only  his  Father's  angels;  they  are  his  as 
well,  and  they  carry  out  his  will.  At  his  last  coming  the 
angels  will  form  a  guard  of  honor  about  him;  he  will  send 
them  all  over  the  world  to  gather  the  just,  his  elect5.  As 
we  see,  then,  Jesus  sets  himself  above  angels  and  men, 
and  next  to  God. 

Hence  Jesus  lays  claim  to  the  most  exalted  powers.  In 
his  own  name,  by  his  own  authority,  and  by  his  own  per- 
sonal virtue,  he  commands  the  elements,  drives  out  demons, 
heals  the  sick,  and  raises  the  dead.  He  works  all  these 
prodigies  by  one  word  of  his,  without  the  intervention  of 
any  other  power6. 

1.  MATT.,  xvii,  1-9.  —  MARK,  ix,  1-9.  —LUKE,  ix,  28-36. 

2.  MATT.  XXH,  42-46.  —  MARK,  xn,  35-37.  — LUKE,  x-x,  41-44.  «  An  unbiased 
reading  of  I  he  statements  of  Jesus  cannot  avoid  the  conclusion  that  the  Messiah 
is  in  reality  the  Son  of  one  more  exalted  than  David,  that  is,  the  Son  of  God  ». 
DALMAN,  The  Words  of  Jesus,  p.  286. 

3.  MATT.,  xi,  9-11.  —  LUKE,  vn,  26-28. 

4.  MATT.,  xxvi,  53. 

5.  MATT.,  xxiv,  31.  — MARK,  xm,  27. 

6.  MATT.,  VH,  26;  ix,  6.—  MARK,  I,  25-26;  IV,  39.—  LUKE,  IV,  35;  v,  24-25, 
Till,  24. 


80  GOD. 

As  regards  the  Law,  he  displays  unheard  of  indepen- 
dence. On  the  one  hand,  he  proclaims  the  divine  origin  of 
the  Law;  and  on  the  other,  he  modifies  it  and  claims  for 
himself  the  power  to  do  so,  using  words  that  show  that  he 
considers  himself  invested  with  sovereign  authority.  «  You 
have  heard  »,  says  he,  «  that  it  was  said  to  the  Ancients... 
And  I  say  to  you....1  » 

This  independence  he  claims  particularly  in  regard  to 
the  Sabbath.  He  heals  on  that  day,  and  he  allows  his  disciples 
to  gather  the  ears;  and  when  he  is  reproached  for  this,  he 
declares  that  he  is  Lord  of  the  Sabbath  also2. 

And  elsewhere,  he  explains  his  conduct  by  saying  that 
the  priests,  when  in  the  temple,  break  the  Sabbath  without 
sin.  And  here  is  one  greater  than  the  temple3. 

The  remission  of  sin  is  the  exercise  of  a  divine  right. 
This  Jesus  acknowledges,  yet  he  makes  use  of  the  right. 
When  objection  is  raised  against  his  doing  so,  he  proves 
that  he  has  that  right,  by  healing  physically  the  one  whom  he 
has  just  healed  morally.  The  argument  is  irrefutable.  In 
fact,  the  Savior  declares  that  it  is  just  as  easy  for  him  to  say 
to  the  paralytic  «  Thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee  »  as  it  is  to  say 
«  Arise  and  walk  ».  The  whole  thing  lies  in  the  doing. 
But  that  it  may  be  knowrn  that  the  sins  of  the  paralytic  are 
really  forgiven  him  and  that  Jesus  truly  has  the  power  to 
forgive  sins,  he  says  to  the  paralytic  :  «  Arise,  take  up  thy 
bed,  and  go  into  thy  house4  ».  And  the  man  arises  and 
goes  to  his  house.  This  power  to  forgive  sin  belongs  so 
properly  to  Jesus  that  he  transmits  it  to  his  Apostles5, 
just  as  he  gives  them  the  power  to  perform  miracles15. 


t.  M\TT.,  V,  22,  28,  32,  34,  39,  44. 

2.  MATT..  XH.,  8.  —  MARK.,  n,  28.  —  LURE,  vi,  2-5. 

3.  MATT.,  xii,  5-6. 

4.  MATT.,  ix,  1-8.  —  M\UK,  n,  1-12.  —  LUKE,  v,  17-26. 

5.  MATT.,  xvm,  18. 

6.  MATT.,  x,  1,  8.  —  MARK,  m,  15;  vi,  7.  —  LIKE,  ix,  12  ;  x,  9. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  81 

Invested  with  the  power  to  forgive  the  sins  of  those 
who  believe  in  him,  and  having  come  into  the  world  to  give 
his  life  as  a  ransom  for  the  sins  of  many1,  he  will,  at  the  end 
of  the  world,  be  the  judge  of  the  living  and  the  dead.  He 
will  come  in  all  his  glory  and,  of  his  own  authority,  he  will 
pronounce  upon  all  men  the  sentence  of  eternal  life  or 
death2. 

The  Savior,  then,  placed  himself  above  not  only  the  most 
celebrated  men  in  the  history  of  Israel,  but  even  above  the 
angels.  He  did  not  hesitate  to  lay  claim  to  the  most  exalted 
powers,  viz.,  the  power  to  perform  miracles,  to  transform 
the  Law,  to  remit  sins,  and  to  set  himself  up  as  the  supreme 
judge  of  the  living  and  the  dead.  He  ascribed  to  himself 
incomparable  superiority  and,  by  attribution,  proclaimed 
himself  not  only  the  great  envoy  of  God,  but  the  Man- 
God.  Thus  we  understand  how  he  —  so  jealous  of  the 
rights  of  God, so  bent  upon  rejecting  the  honors  of  the  Jews, 
so  severe  upon  pharisaic  pride  —  is  acquiescent  in  receiving 
from  those  who  believed  in  him  with  a  true  faith  the  ado- 
ration due  only  to  the  Divinity3. 

No  wonder  then  if,  not  only  as  regards  his  teachings, 


1.  MATT.,  xxvi,  28.  —  MARK,  xiv,  24.  —  LUKE,  IXH,  20. 

2.  MATT.,  xxiv-xxv.  —  MARK,  xm.  —  LUKE,  xn. 

3.  Thus  writes  LEMN,   Christ   and  the  Gospel,  p.  315-318  :    «  It  should 
be  noted  that  the  terms «  adoration  »  and  «  prostration  »  do  not  always  imply  homage 
in  the  sense  usually  given   to  them.    They  may  serve  to  denote  the  action  of 
a    servant  when  kneeling  before  his  master,  of  a  subject  in  presence  of   his 
king...    Nevertheless,  the  expression  does  possess   a   religious  meaning;   and 
when  such  is  the  case  it  is  always  thai  of  adoration,  properly  speaking,  of  the 
supreme  homage  due  to  God  alone...    Jesus  never  for  a  moment  declined  such  ho- 
mage, even  in  circumstances  that  marked  it  with  a  religious  stamp  :  He  accepts 
it.    He  approves  of  it.    No  doubt,  it  is  not  always  that  those  who  thus  prostrate 
themselves  at  His  feet  intend  to  offer  Him  the  adoration  reserved  to  God  alone. 
Often,  however,  such  prostration  bears  the  general  character  of  religious  ho- 
mage.   Was  it  not,  for  instance,  to  a  great  wonder-worker,  to  a  man  of  God,  that 
the  adoration  rendered  by  the  lepers  and  by  the  chief  of  the  Synagogue  was  ap- 
parently directed  ?    But  above  all,  the  demoniacs  of  Gerasa,  and  the  boatmen 
of  Genesareth  plainly  disclose  the  true  meaning  of  their  prostration  when,  in 
falling  down  at  Jesus'  feet,  they  proclaim  Him  to  be  the  «  Son  of  God  »,  the  «  Son 

T.  i.  6 


82  GOD. 

but  as  regards  his  person  as  well,  he  did  require  faith,  obe- 
dience, love,  and  absolute  attachment,  an  attachment  which 
demanded  the  renunciation  of  everything-  besides  him- 
self*. 


THE  DIVINITY  OF  THE  SON  ACCORDING  TO  THE  GOSPEL 
OF  ST.  JOHN. 

Character  of  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  John.  —  It 
was  for  the  beloved  disciple  to  make  known  to  men  in  the 
most  explicit  manner  the  inmost  nature  of  the  Savior.  His 
entire  Gospel  ,  almost,  is  an  affirmation  of  the  divinity  of 
Jesus.  In  the  prologue  he  describes  his  eternal  preexis- 
tence;  and  all  through  the  narrative  he  shows  the  equality 
of  the  Father  and  the  Son.  His  vision  has  penetrated  even 
to  the  mystery  of  the  communion  of  life  between  the  Father 
and  the  Son. 

The  Word  of  God-  —  The  Word  is  from  all  eternity;  he 
is  God2;  and  this,  because  he  is  in  God,  literally  towards 
God,  that  is  to  say,  continually  in  active  relation  with 
God3.  He  is,  in  fact,  the  Only  Begotten  of  the  Father,  and 
possesses  through  eternal  generation  the  fulness  of  divine 
life4.  And  after  he  was  made  man  we  contemplated  his 
glory.  This  glory,  as  that  which  an  only  son  receives  from 
his  father,  was  his  very  own5.  By  him  all  things  were 
made6;  and  through  him  we  received  the  Law,  Revelation, 


of  the  Most  High  ».     So  too,  the  holy  women  and  the  apostles  who  fell  prostrate 
before  the  Risen  Lord  undoubtedly  thus  meant  to  pay  Him  religious  homage.  » 

1.  MATT.,  X,  32-33,  37-42;  XI,  28;  xiv,  24-25. 

2.  JNM  i    1. 


3.  Jit.,  i 

4.  Jn.,  i 

5.  J«.,  I 

6.  JR.,  i 


1. 

18. 
14. 
3,  10. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  83 

and  the  gifts  of  salvation1.  No  one  ever  saw  God;  but, 
through  the  humanity  which  he  took  upon  himself,  we  have, 
in  seeing  the  only  Son  who  possesses  the  fulness  of  the 
Divinity,  known  God2. 

His  Equality  with  the  Father.  —  This  equality,  already 
affirmed  in  the  prologue,  is  the  subject  of  important  decla- 
rations in  the  course  of  the  Gospel. 

Jesus  knows  the  Father  as  the  Father  knows  him;  and 
he  alone  has  seen  the  Father3.  Jesus  loves  the  Father  as 
the  Father  loves  him4.  The  Son  has  the  same  power  as  the 
Father ;  for  the  Father  shows  the  Son  everything  he  does, 
and  everything  that  is  done  by  the  Father  is  done  also  by  the 
Son 5.  The  Son  has  received  from  the  Father  the  two  attri- 
butes characteristic  of  the  divinity,  viz.,  the  power  to  give 
life  and  to  judge.  «  For  as  the  Father  raiseth  up  the  dead, 
and  giveth  life,  so  the  Son  also  giveth  life  to  whom  he  will. 
For  neither  doth  the  Father  judge  any  man  :  but  hath  given 
all  judgment  to  the  Son*5.  »  Equal  to  the  Father  in  intelli- 
gence, love,  and  power,  he  has  the  same  title  to  honor  as 
he  Father  has".  To  refuse  to  honor  the  Son,  is  to  refuse  to 
give  the  Father  the  worship  that  is  due  him8. 

The  Community  of  Life  between  Father  and  Son.  —  But 
if  the  Son  is  equal  to  the  Father,  it  is  because  they  are  bound 
together  by  the  strongest  ties,  so  much  so  that  they  live  in 
each  other.  «  Do  you  not  believe  that  1  am  in  the  Father, 
and  the  Father  in  me...?  Believe  upon  my  word  that  I  am 


1.  JN.  I,  3-5;  11-13. 

2.  JN.  i,  is. 

3.  JN.  VI,  46;  vn,  28-29,  X,  14-15. 

4.  JN.  HI,  35;  T,  20;  X,  17 ;  xiv,  31  ;  xv,  9 ;  xvn,  24. 

5.  JN.  v,  19-20. 

6.  JN.  v,  21-22. 

7.  JN.  v,  23;  XH,  24;  xnr,  21-23. 

8.  JN.  v,  53 ;  xv,  23. 


84  GOD. 

in  the  Father  and  the  Father  in  me1.  »  Hence,  to  see  the 
Son  is  to  see  the  Father2;  to  know  the  Son  is  to  know  the 
Father3;  to  receive  the  Son  is  to  receive  the  Father4;  all 
that  the  Father  possesses  the  Son  likewise  possesses5.  In  a 
word,  the  Father  and  the  Son  have  but  one  and  the  same 
life;  they  are  but  one.  «  I  and  the  Father  are  one0  ».  Have 
we  not  already  here  an  affirmation  of  the  unity  of  substance 
of  the  Father  and  the  Son? 

§  HI 
THE  DIVINITY  OF  THE  SON  FROM  THE  EPISTLES  OF  ST.  PACL.? 

Importance  of  St  Paul's  Testimony.  —  «  I  give  you  to 
understand,  brethren  »,  writes  the  Apostle  to  the  Galatians, 
«  that  the  Gospel  which  was  preached  by  me  is  not  accord- 
ing to  man.  For  neither  did  I  receive  it  from  man,  nor  did 
learn  it;  but  by  the  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ8  » 

This  word  of  St.  Paul  gives  us  a  basis  for  reckoning  the 
value  of  his  whole  testimony.  The  glorious  Christ  vouch- 
safed Paul  on  the  way  to  Damascus  a  vision  of  himself.  At  the 
same  time  that  He  made  him  an  apostle,  he  revealed  to  him  his 
Gospel.  So  it  is  from  the  Savior  himself  that  Paul  learned 
the  doctrine  that  he  taught9. 

Moreover,  his  teaching  does  not  difler  from  that  of  the 
other  Apostles. 


1.  JN.,  xiv,  10;  ivii,  22. 

2.  JN.,  xiv,  9. 

3.  Jw.,  xiv,  7. 

4.  JN.,  xm,  20. 

5.  JN.,  xvi,  15. 
G.  JN.,  x,  30. 

7.  A  similar  study  could  be  made  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  Cf.  MANGBNOT, 
Jesus  Messie  et  Fils  de  Lieu  d'apres  les  Actes  des  Apotres,  in  Rev.  de  I'fns- 
titut  calholique,  Nov.-Dec.  1907. 

8.  Gal.,  i,  11-12. 

9.  I  Cor.,  xi,  23. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  85 

It  is  known  and  accepted  by  Peter,  James,  and  John. 
«  When  they  had  seen  that  to  me  was  committed  the  Gospel 
of  the  uncircumcision,  as  to  Peter  was  that  of  the  circum- 
cision, (for  he  who  wrought  in  Peter  to  the  apostleship  of 
the  circumcision,  wrought  in  me  also  among  the  Gentiles) ; 
and  when  they  had  known  the  grace  that  was  given  to  me, 
James  and  Cephas  and  John,  who  seemed  to  be  pillars,  gave 
to  me  and  Barnabas  the  right  hand  of  fellowship ;  that  we 
should  go  unto  the  Gentiles,  and  they  unto  the  circum- 
cision1 ». 

The  general  teaching  of  St.  Paul  on  the  Divinity  of 
Christ.  —  Christ  wasamanlikeus2;hewasborn  of  woman3; 
he  appeared  to  us  as  a  servant4;  he  was  subject  to  the  law  of 
Moses5;  he  was  obedient  io  the  will  of  God,  even  unto  the 
death  of  the  cross6.  Yet,  personally  he  did  not  know  sin7. 
All  mankind  sinned  in  Adam ;  through  Christ  all  were  rec- 
onciled8. Thiswas  because  the  first  man,  Adam,  wasof  earth, 
whereas  Christ  was  of  heaven,  heavenly9. 

He  existed,  then,  before  his  appearance  in  the  flesh,  for 
he  is  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  all  creation  10  and  of  all 
sanctification11,  rich12  and  in  the  same  condition  as  God13, 
the  Son  of  God  u.  And  there  can  be  no  question  here  of  any 


1.  Gal.,  ii,  7-9. 

I.  I  Cor.,  xv,  21 ;  Rom.,  v,  15 ;  vui,  3. 
3    Co/.,  iv,  4. 

4.  Phil.,  II,  7. 

5.  Gal.,  iv,  4. 

6.  Phil.,  ii,  8. 

7.  II  Cor.,  v,  21. 

8.  Rom.,  v,  12-21. 

9.  /  Cor.,  xv,  47-49. 

10.  Col.,  i,  15-17. 

II.  Eph.,  i,  4. 

12.  //Cor.,  vui,  9. 

13.  Phil. ,11,  6. 

11.  GaL,\,  16;  ii,20;  iv,  4;  — /  Thess.,  1, 10;—  /Cor.,  i,9;  xv,28;  //Cor., 


86  GOD. 

but  a  substantial  relation  ;  for,  in  speaking  of  this  Son  of  God, 
the  Apostle  calls  him  the  true  Son  of  God1,  the  image  of 
God2,  the  Wisdom  of  God3,  and  in  several  passages,  simply 
God ''. 

Hence  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  is  above  all,  according  to 
St.  Paul,  /AeLord.  There  is  no  doubt  but  even  before  they 
recognized  him  as  the  Messias,  the  disciples  called  Jesus 
Lord5 ;  some  who  came  and  begged  him  for  miracles  so 
addressed  him6.  But,  on  their  lips,  this  name  had  a  restricted 
meaning.  Jesus  was  their  Lord  in  this,  that  he  was  their 
wonder-worker,  theirprophet,  their  doctor7.  But  the  great 
Apostle  speaks  in  an  entirely  different  way.  For  him,  Jesus 
is  Lord,  without  restriction.  After  raising  him  from  the 
dead,  God  made  him  sit  at  his  right  hand  in  heaven,  above 
all  principalities,  above  all  powers,  above  all  authority,  all 
dignity;  and  his  name  is  above  any  that  can  be  mentioned, 
not  only  now,  but  in  the  ages  to  come8.  In  a  word,  at  the 
same  time  that  he  was  raised  by  God  from  the  dead,  he  was 
enthroned  as  Lord  of  all  things9.  Hence  is  he  to  be  adored 
as  God.  At  the  name  of  Jesus  every  knee  should  bend  in 
heaven,  on  earth,  and  under  the  earth  10.  We  must  invoke 


I,  19 ;  xi,  31 ;  Rom.,  i,  3,  4,  9 ;  v,  10 ;  vni,  3,  29,  32  ;  —  Eph.,  iv,  13 ;  —  Col.,  I, 
13. 

1.  ltom.,  vni,  32. 

2.  //  Cor.,  iv,  4;  Col.,  I,  15. 

3.  /  Cor.,  i,  30. 

4.  Tit.,  i,  3. 

5.  Mat.,  XIII,  51;  XVIII,  21. 

6.  Mat.,  vm,  5-8;  ix,  29;   XV,  27;  XX,  31,  33. 

7.  Cf.  ROSE,  Etudes  sur  la  ihtologic.  de.  saint  Paul,  in  Rev.  bibl.,  oet.  1903, 
p.  347. 

8.  Eph.,  i,  20-23. 

y.  This  leaching  of  St.  Paul  is  a  counterpart  of  that  of  St.  Matthew  (xxvm, 
18),  where  the  risen  Savior  in  speaking  to  his  disciples,  says,  «  all  power  is 
given  to  me  in  heaven  and  on  earth  ».  In  St.  Paul,  as  also  in  St.  Matthew  the 
language  is  not  such  as  to  signify  that  Jesus  was  not  the  Lord  before  his  Resur- 
rection. He  was,  but  the  declaration  before  the  whole  world  had  not  yet  been 
made;  this  was  brought  about  by  his  Resurrection. 

10.  Phil.,  n,  10-11. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  87 

him  as  God.  Just  as  the  Jews  found  salvation  in  the  in- 
vocation of  the  name  of  K'jpioq  —  Yahweh1,  so  Christians  will 
be  saved  by  calling  upon  the  name  of  K'jpiog-'Iyjtrou?2.  This 
they  will  do  if  it  be  given  them  by  the  Holy  Ghost;  for  no  one 
can  say  «  Jesus  is  the  Lord  »,  except  it  be  given  him  by  the 
Holy  Ghost3. 

According  to  St.  Paul,  then,  Jesus  is  man,  but  he  is  at 
the  same  time  the  true  Son  of  God,  God  of  God.  And  he  is 
above  all  the  Lord,  to  whom  we  must  pray,  whom  we  must 
adore  4. 

Examination  of  Some  Particularly  Significant  Texts.  - 
Some  doctors  of  the  Christian  Church  at  Colossus,  in  Phrygia, 
exaggerated  the  homage  to  be  paid  to  angels.  They  ascribed 
to  them  so  important  a  r6le  in  the  Creation  as  to  make  them 
equal  to  the  preexistent  Christ.  St.  Paul,  in  his  epistle  to  the 
Colossians,  attacks  them,  saying  that  this  knowledge  is  «  ac- 
cording to  the  traditions  of  men,  according  to  the  elements  of 
the  world5  ».  It  is  the  false  knowledge  of  Christ6,  to 
which  he  opposes  the  true  knowledge,  which  he  gives  as 
follows  :  «  He  (Christ)  is  the  image  of  the  living  God,  the 
first-born  of  all  creatures  :  for  in  him  were  all  things  created 
in  heaven,  on  earth,  visible,  and  invisible,  whether  thrones, 


1.  Joel,  11,  32. 

2.  Rom.,  x,  9. 

3.  /  Cor.,  in,  3. 

4.  On  this  point,  ROSE  has  righlly  remarked  :  «  And  if  it  be  borne  in  mind 
that  the  word  xvpto;  was  among  the  Greeks,  synonymous  with  God;  that  Paul, 
imbued  with  (he  elementary  notions  of  their  theology,  did  not  fear  to  circulate 
among'Christian  communities,  recently  converted  and  as  yet  scarcely  shorn  of  their 
former  beliefs,  who  having  still  preserved  their  forms,  and  who  by  the  natural 
ardor  of  their  thought,  came  (o  believe  in  Jesus  the  Savior  as   God,  the  whole 
meaning  and  bearing  of  SI.  Paul's  confession  is  easily  grasped.  »    —  Cf.  I.  c., 
p.  349. 

5.  Col.,  ii,  8. 

6.  Ibid.,  I,  9  :  «  Ounau6[xe6a  ujt£pO(A(5v  jtpooeux6[ievotxat  ahoujxevoi  tva  icX 
6r,T£  TTJV  intyvwaiv  toy  OeXtjaato;  a-jrov  ev  TKXTIJ  0-09:01  xai  ayveaei 


88  GOD. 

or  dominations,  or  principalities,  or  powers  :  all  things  were 
created  by  him  and  in  him  :  and  he  is  before  all,  and  by 
him  all  things  consist.  And  he  is  the  head  of  the  body, 
the  Church,  who  is  the  beginning-,  the  first-born  from  the 
dead  :  that  in  all  things  he  may  hold  the  primacy  :  because 
in  him  it  hath  well  pleased  the  Father,  that  all  fulness  should 
dwell,  and  through  him  to  reconcile  all  things  to  Himself, 
making  peace  through  the  blood  of  his  cross,  both  as  to 
the  things  on  earth,  and  the  things  that  are  in  heaven1.  » 

Christ,  then,  cannot  be  placed  on  the  same  level  as  the 
angels.  He  is  the  Creator  of  all  things,  above  everything 

that  exists,  eternal;  he  possesses  3 the  fulness  of  the 

Godhead,  —  in  more  explicit  terms,  as  the  Apostle  puts  it  fur- 
ther on,  in  him  dwelleth  all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  cor- 
porally. Although  he  does  not  call  him  God  formally,  the 
Apostle  predicates  of  him  characteristics  which  can  be  found 
only  in  God.  There  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  for  him 
Christ  is  truly  God. 

We  are  all  the  more  strongly  drawn  to  this  conclusion, 
if  we  take  the  pains  to  compare  the  doctrine  of  the  epistles 
with  that  of  the  sapiential  books,  from  which  they  draw  their 
inspiration.  Thus,  he  says  that  the  preexistent  Christ  is  the 
image  of  the  invisible  God,  born  before  all  creatures;  for  all 
things  were  made  by  him  and  for  him.  He  is  born  before 
all,  and  all  things  subsist  in  him3.  In  other  words,  St  Paul 
identifies  the  Wisdom  of  the  Old  Testament  with  the  pre- 
existent Christ.  Although  only  indirect,  it  would  be  difficult 
to  find  a  stronger  affirmation  of  the  divinity  of  Christ. 

But,  it  will  be  objected,  since  the  Apostle  worked  out 
a  Christological  doctrine,  is  it  not  queer  that  he  did  not  state 
explicitly  that  Christ  is  God,  that  Christ  is  the  true  Son  of 
God?  Let  us  remember  that  St.  Paul  did  not  address  his  epistle 


1.  Col.,  I,  15-20. 

2.  Col.t  II,  9. 

3.  Cf.  Prov.,  VHI ;  Eccli.,  XXIF;    Wisd.,  vii,  24-30. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  89 

to  such  as  would  raise  an  objection  of  this  kind.  He  was 
writing  to  the  Colossians.  Now,  what  were  the  needs  of  these 
Christians?  The  contents  of  his  letter  show  it  very  explicitly. 
They  had  to  be  taught  that  the  preexistent  Christ  was  not  to 
be  confounded  with  the  intermediary  beings  which,  accord- 
ing to  certain  philosophers,  had  a  hand  in  the  Creation.  If, 
then,  the  Apostle  did  not  state  with  greater  precision  the 
relation  between  the  preexistent  Christ  and  God  the  Father, 
it  is  because  the  controversy  which  he  wished  to  settle  had 
nothing  to  do  with  this  question,  but  concerned  only  the 
relation  between  Christ  and  creatures. 

It  was  questions  of  the  moral  order  that  led  St.  Paul,  in 
the  epistle  to  the  Philippians,  to  declare  again  the  divinity 
of  Christ. 

«  Let  this  mind  be  in  you  which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus : 
Who  being  in  the  condition  of  God  (4v  [xopf^  6eo3  u-aapxtov), 
thought  it  not  a  thing  to  be  grasped  to  be  on  an  equality 
with  God  (TO  elvai  t'aa  0ew)  :  but  emptied  himself,  taking  the 
condition  of  a  servant  ([xop?f,v  SouXsu),  being  made  in  the  like- 
ness of  men,  and  in  habit  found  as  man  (xat  ayr^oni  e-JpsOsi? 
w?  afvOpwTTos).  He  humbled  himself,  becoming  obedient  unto 
death  :  even  to  the  death  of  the  cross.  For  which  cause  God 
also  hath  exalted  him1.  » 

These  texts,  so  clear  in  themselves,  become  even  clearer 
when  examined  in  the  light  of  their  necessary  relation  with 
the  epistle  to  the  Colossians.  All  things  were  made  by  Christ, 
all  things  subsist  in  Him,  all  things  are  for  Him.  Hence,  He 
must  exist  in  the  condition  of  God,  must,  consequently, 
possess  the  divine  nature  and  be  truly  God. 

After  such  declarations  as  these,  it  is  not  surprising  to 
find,  in  the  epistle  to  the  Romans,  the  following  statement : 

«  (The  Israelites)  of  whom  is  Christ  according  to  the 
flesh,  who  is  over  all  things,  God  blessed  forever.  Amen. 


1.   Phil.,  II,  G-7. 


90  GOD. 

( s£  wv  6  )jpi(TTb?  TO  xaii  aapxa,  6  wv  eiu  TTXVTWV,  Oeb? 

el?  TOU£  atwva;;'  atArjv  ^^-a 

One  could  scarcely  wish  a  text  clearer  or  more  categor- 
ical than  this  formula.  Hence,  for  a  long  time,  exegetes  of  the 
liberal  school  have  tried  to  divide  this  phrase  so  as  to  have 
the  closing  doxology  apply  not  to  Christ  but  to  God  the 
Father. 

Erasmus,  in  1516,  in  his  annotations  to  the  Novum  Tes- 
t amentum  graece,  put  a  period  after  xa-a  crapy-a,  and  trans- 
lated the  passage  thus  :  «  The  Israelites  of  whom  Christ  is 
according  to  the  flesh.  He  that  is  above  all  things  is  God 
Who  is  blessed  forever.  »  This  punctuation  was  adopted  by 
Tischendorf,  in  1842. 

According  to  Reuss  2,  we  should  put  a  comma  after  xaii 
crapxa,  and  a  period  after  k-xl  ^dtv-cwv,  and  translate  :  «  The 
Israelites  of  whom,  according  to  the  flesh,  is  Christ  who  is 
above  all  things.  God  be  blessed  forever.  » 

What  are  we  to  think  of  this  controversy? 

Tradition  has  always  interpreted  this  text  in  the  sense  it 
has  when  we  follow  the  punctuation  adopted  by  Catholics. 
And  the  punctuation  which  originated  with  Erasmus  is  so 
arbitrary  that  this  author  himself  finally  gave  it  up.  It  was 
formally  disapproved  of  by  Theodore  Beza;  and,  though  it 
favored  his  doctrine,  it  was  rejected  by  Socinus. 

Moreover,  neither  the  punctuation  of  Erasmus  nor  that 
of  Reuss  is  consistent  with  certain  philological  principles. 
The  construction  of  a  doxology  of  the  Father  should,  accord- 
ing to  the  invariable  usage  of  biblical  Greek,  be  not  fteb? 
suXoyYjToq,  but  rather  the  inverted  order  euXoy^Tb?  5  Osbc.  Fi- 
nally, the  context,  the  general  tenor  of  the  thought,  and 
the  construction  of  the  phrase  seem  to  favor  rather  the 
traditional  interpretation  3. 

1.  Rom.,  is,  5-6. 

2.  Etudes  pauliniennes,  u,  80-83. 

3.  See  DuR4ND,  La  divinitd  de  Jesus-Christ  dans  saint  Paul,  Revue  Bi- 
blique,  oclobre  1903,  p.  564. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  91 

Moreover,  in  the  epistle  to  Titus,  there  is  a  declaration 
almost  identical  with  that  of  the  epistle  to  the  Romans. 

«  Looking  for  the  blessed  hope  and  coming  of  the  glory 
of  our  great  God  and  Savior  Jesus  Christ,  who  gave 
himself  for  us,  that  he  might  redeem  us  from  all  iniquity  l  ». 

It  is  quite  generally  agreed  that,  if  the  epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  was  not  composed  by  St.  Paul,  it  was  at  least  writ- 
ten under  his  influence  and  reproduces  his  teachings.  But 
the  prologue  of  this  epistle  is  an  admirable  profession  of 
the  divinity  of  Christ.  We  shall  conclude  this  lesson  with 
an  exposition  of  this  doctrine. 

Judaism  had,  besides  its  priesthood,  three  kinds  of  me- 
diators :  the  prophets,  the  angels,  and  Moses.  But  how  in- 
ferior their  rank  to  that  of  Christ !  Formerly  God  spoke  to 
the  patriarchs  through  the  prophets  and  through  them  gave 
fragmentary  revelations;  but  to  us  He  now  speaks  through 
Christ  and  through  him  He  has  given  us  His  complete  re- 
velation2. He  has  spoken  to  us  through  the  Son,  i.  e.,  him 
who  is  the  effulgence  of  the  glory  of  the  Father  and  the 
figure  of  His  substance  3.  The  angels  only  carried  out  the 
behests  of  the  divinity  as  regards  the  elect 4.  Christ  is  the 
Son  engendered  from  all  eternity  5.  What  the  Old  Testa- 
ment says  of  Yahweh  is  applicable  to  Christ.  Thus  it  is 
said  that  He  created  the  earth,  and  that  the  heavens  are  the 
work  of  His  hand ;  He  is  incapable  of  change,  yet  He  changes 
all  these  things  at  will G.  He  is  the  king  of  the  people  ;  He 
holds  the  sceptre  of  justice7.  He  is  God8;  and  the  angels 
owe  Him  homage  9.  And  Moses  was  the  faithful  steward  of 


1. 

lit.,  II,  13-14. 

2. 

Hebr. 

,1-2. 

3. 

Hebr. 

,  3. 

4. 

Hebr. 

,  13-14. 

5. 

Hebr. 

,  5. 

6. 

Hebr. 

10-13. 

7. 

Hebr. 

8-9. 

8. 

Hclir. 

,  8. 

y. 

Hebr. 

,6. 

92  GOD. 

the  house  of  God,  i.  e.,  of  the  people  of  God;  but  he  was 
only  a  servant  and  the  house  did  not  belong  to  him.  As  Son, 
Christ  rules  His  own  house,  i.  e.,  the  Church;  for  He  is  its 
founder.  It  is  difficult  to  see  that  the  prologue  of  St.  John's 
Gospel  or  the  epistles  to  the  Philippians  or  the  Colossians 
c.m  add  to  this  affirmation  of  the  divinity  of  Christ  l. 

§  IV 

TRADITION    OF   THE    FATHERS. 

General  Idea.  —  From  apostolic  times  up  to  the  begin- 
ning of  the  fourth  centui'y,  generation  after  generation 
proclaimed  that  Christ  is  truly  God.  But  now  and  then  in 
this  universal  harmony  a  faint  discordant  note  arose,  and 
there  were  some  who  said  that  Jesus  was  but  a  man  superior 
to  other  men  in  sanctity  and  knowledge,  whom  the  pre- 
existing Christ  or  the  Holy  Ghost  had  adopted  on  the  day  of 
his  baptism.  But  so  great  was  the  faith  of  the  people  in 
the  Christ-God  that  these  discordant  notes  failed  to  make  any 
impression.  If,  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century, 
Arianism,  owing  to  the  cleverness  of  those  who  supported 
it,  led  many  astray,  it  was  but  a  short  time  before  it  was 
condemned  by  the  council  of  Nicea. 

Apostolic  Fathers.  —  The  epistle  of  St.  Barnabas 
teaches  the  doctrine  of  the  absolute  divinity  of  the  Son  by 
reproducing  and  developing  St.  Paul's  Christology.  The 
preexistent  Christ  appeared  in  the  flesh,  according  to  this 
document,  that  He  might  be  seen  and  touched  by  men  2. 
Those  who  cannot  behold  the  sun,  which  is  but  a  work  of 
His  hand  and  will  pass  away,  could  not  see  Him  and  touch 
Him  in  Himself 3.  Hidden  under  His  veil  of  flesh,  it  is  not  easy 


1.  Cf.  PRAT,  La  Iheologie  de  Saint  Paul,  pp.  516-524. 

2.  BARN.  Epist.,  v,  6. 

3.  Ibid.,y,  10. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  93 

to  recognize  Him;  in  vain  does  He  say  that  He  is  the  Son  of 
God,  for,  trusting  to  appearances,  men  cannot  believe  it. 
Hence  it  is  only  after  His  mission  has  been  fulfilled  that  He 
reveals  Himself  in  His  true  nature  l.  Because  He  is  merely 
hidden  in  the  flesh,  he  resurrects  Himself  from  the  dead 
and  raises  Himself  to  heaven  2.  The  Christ-God  truly  dwells 
in  the  hearts  of  His  own;  and,  by  His  presence  there,  is  the 
fountain-head  of  wisdom,  knowledge,  and  the  forgiveness  of 
sins  3. 

In  his  epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  St.  Clement,  in  a 
form  somewhat  attenuated,  it  is  true,  gives  the  Christology 
of  St.  Paul.  The  splendor  of  the  Majesty  of  God,  Christ,  he 
tells  us,  is  as  much  superior  to  the  angels  as  the  name 
which  is  His  is  superior  to  theirs.  For,  of  the  angels,  it  is 
said  that  they  are  the  ministers  of  God ;  but  of  Christ  it  is 
said  :  «  Thou  art  my  son,  to-day  have  I  begotten  thee  »  «. 
These  words,  taken  from  the  Psalms  (civ  and  n) 5,  had  already 
been  applied  to  Christ  in  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  to 
signify  His  absolute  divinity  6.  St.  Clement  uses  them  in  the 
same  sense.  And  again,  in  speaking  of  Christ,  he  says  : 
«  Being  the  sceptre  of  the  glory  of  God,  He  might  have  come 
in  His  glory,  but  He  came  in  humility  7  ».  The  illustrious 
martyr  recalls,  in  this  passage,  the  epistle  of  St.  Paul  to  the 
Philippians8,  just  as  in  the  passage  where  he  says  :  «  If  you 
love  Christ,  keep  His  commandments,  for  who  can  express 
what  is  the  love  of  God-1  »,  he  recalls,  no  doubt,  the  epistle 


1.  BARN.,  VH,  9. 

2.  Ibid.,  \v,  9  :  «  Ai6  xai  ayo(xsv  T^V  ifi(xspav  rr,v  6y66r,v  el;  £-J9po<ruvr)v,  £v  i§  xai 

aveffrr,  EX  vcxpwv  xai  qpavspwOcl;  dve^Tj  el;  oOpavouc  ». 

3.  Ibid.,    xv,   9   :    «  Aib  ev  t&  xaToixT)Tr,pico   T.JIWV  atoi9<3;  6  Osb?  xatoixei  £v 
». 

4.  Ad  Cor.,  xxxvi,  2-5. 

5.  Pi.  CIV,  4  ;  II,  7. 
G.  Ilebr.,  i,  7;  v,  5. 

7.  Ad  Cor.,  xvi.  2. 

8.  Phil.,  n,  5-8. 

9.  Ad  Cor.,  XLIX,  1-2. 


94  GOD. 

to   the  Romans1.     Such  is  the  doctrine    of  St.   Clement2. 

The  two  works  just  spoken  of  drew  their  inspiration 
rather  from  the  doctrine  of  St.  Paul.  St.  Ignatius  of  Antioch, 
in  his  letters,  affirms  no  less  formally  the  divinity  of  Christ, 
but  he  draws  rather  upon  St.  John.  Our  God,  Jesus  Christ, 
he  says,  was  conceived  in  the  womb  of  Mary,  according- to 
the  divine  dispensation,  of  the  race  of  David  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  3.  Hence  it  is  that  there  is  but  one  physician  in  the 
flesh  and  in  the  spirit,  born  and  not  born,  God  in  the  flesh, 
really  life  in  death,  born  of  Mary  and  of  God,  now  passible 
and  then  impassible,  Jesus  Christ,  our  Lord  A.  And  this  is 
the  physician  :  «  There  is  but  one  God  who  manifested 
Himself  in  Jesus  Christ,  His  Son,  who  is  His  Word,  not 
proceeding1  forth  from  silence  and  who  in  all  things  pleased 
Him  that  sent  Him5.  »  So  St.  Ignatius  gives  us  a  complete 
Christological  doctrine.  He  affirms  both  the  divinity  and 
the  humanity  of  Christ,  each  the  possession  of  but  one  and 
the  same  subject  which  is  the  Word. 

This  testimony  is  enough  to  permit  us  to  say  that  the 
first  generation  of  Christians  believed  in  the  absolute  divinity 
of  Christ;  a  conclusion  which  is  of  the  highest  importance. 
If  the  Apostolic  Fathers  believed  in  the  absolute  divinity  of 
Christ,  how  are  we  to  explain  their  faith?  Shall  we  say  that 
it  was  the  result  of  reflection  and  meditation,  under  the  guid- 
ance of  the  Spirit  of  God?  Such  a  conjecture  would  be  no 
explanation  of  the  faith  of  the  Apostolic  Fathers;  it  could 


1.  Rom.,  Tin,  35. 

2.  A  second    Epislle  to  the  Corinthians,    attributed  to  St.  Clement,  but 
whose  authenticity  is  disputed  and  which,  according  to  critics,  belongs  to  the 
middle  of  the  second  century,  is  even   more  explicit.     Suffice   it  to  quote  its 
opening  words  :   «  Our  convictions  for  Jesus  ought  to  be  the  same  as  those  for 
God,  the  same  as   for  the  Judge  of  the  living  and  the  dead  ».    This  second 
epistle  is  placed  by  FUNK  immediately  after  the  first. 

3.  Ad  Eph.,  xvin,  2. 

4.  Ad  Eph.,  VH,  2. 

5.  Ad  Magn.,  VIH,  2  :  «  oTteT;  6e6;e<mv,6  ^avspwaa;  iaytov  Sta  'I^ooO  ^ptatou 
TOU  utoy  autou,  8;  i(mv  aurov  X<5yoc  arco  aiyrj;  7tpo£).6wv  ». 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  9o 

not  he  adduced  even  as  a  hypothesis,  for  a  hypothesis  must 
have  probability  on  its  side,  and  this  has  not.  If  the  letters 
which  we  have  cited  were  not  written  before  the  year  70, 
they  cannot  be  of  later  origin  than  the  first  century.  St. 
Clement  suffered  martyrdom  in  the  year  101,  and  St.  Igna- 
tius in  the  year  107;  and  only  the  epistle  of  Barnabas  might 
have  been  written  a  little  later.  If  we  reflect  that  these 
expressions  are  above  all  the  expression  of  a  firm  and  resolute 
faith,  which  brings  those  animated  with  it  to  martyrdom, 
and  not  merely  the  result  of  speculation;  and  if  we  re- 
mark, furthermore,  that  they  are  the  words  of  believers 
addressed  to  Christians  who  also  believe  firmly,  we  will 
unhesitatingly  conclude  that,  in  order  to  explain  the  existence 
of  such  a  faith  at  the  end  of  first  century,  we  must  admit 
that  its  propagation  commenced,  at  the  latest,  about  the 
year  50,  that  is,  about  the  time  of  the  Apostles.  In  other 
wrords,  the  Apostolic  Fathers  could  have  believed  in  the 
absolute  divinity  of  Christ  only  because  the  Apostles  taught 
them  this  doctrine. 

All  that  remains,  then,  is  Kenan's  trite  saying  :  «  The 
Apostles  deified  Christ  ».  This  is  to  ignore  the  history  as  well 
as  the  psychology  of  the  Christian  faith.  In  fact,  the  elevation 
of  Jesus  the  Messias  to  the  title  of  Jesus  the  Messias  and  God, 
was  altogether  beyond  the  Jewish  thought.  To  arrive  at  this 
result,  it  would  have  been  necessary  to  shake  off  the  idea 
that  the  Messias  was  to  be  a  temporal  king  and  was  to 
inaugurate  an  earthly  royalty.  It  would  have  been  neces- 
sary, too,  for  them  to  rid  themselves  of  this  other  idea, 
which  obtained  no  less  than  the  first  with  the  ultra-spiri- 
tualistic contemporaries  of  the  Savior,  that  Yahioeh  could  not 
come  in  direct  contact  with  matter.  Besides,  this  trans- 
formation would  have  come  about  in  a  few  years.  We  must 
confess  that  this  is  asking  too  much  of  the  Christian  faith. 
Never  did  that  faith  know  such  rapid  evolution,  not  even  as 
regards  the  fixing  of  a  simple  dogmatic  concept.  To  explain 
the  faith  of  the  first  Christians  in  the  absolute  divinity  of 


06  GOD. 

Christ,  we  have  to  admit  that  the  Savior  Himself  revealed 
this  divinity  to  His  Apostles.  This  inference  and  the  conclu- 
sion drawn  from  our  study  of  the  New  Testament  reinforce 
each  other. 

Saint  Justin.  —  In  his  First  Apology,  addressed,  as  we 
know,  to  Antoninus  Pius,  St.  Justin  declares  that  he  does  not 
acknowledge  the  gods  of  the  heathen;  but,  on  the  contrary, 
he  believes  in  God  the  Father  and  in  His  Son,  who  came  from 
Him  among  us,  the  Word  become  man  and  called  Jesus 
Christ  ' . 

But  especially  in  the  Dialogue  with  Trypho  do  we  lind 
the  doctrine  of  the  divinity  of  Christ  brought  out. 

There  were  two  principal  difficulties  wrhich  prevented 
the  Jews  from  acknowledging  the  divinity  of  Christ,  viz., 
their  faith  in  one  God  only,  and  their  hope  in  a  Messias  who 
was  to  be  the  greatest  of  the  sons  of  men,  but  yet  only  a  man 
born  of  men  2. 

To  meet  these  objections,  St.  Justin  undertakes  to  prove 
from  Scripture  that  Christ  had  a  preexistence  as  God.  Only 
through  Him,  in  fact,  under  the  form  of  an  angel  or  of  some 
other  sensible  sign,  could  God  manifest  Himself,  in  the  Old 
Testament,  to  Abraham,  to  Jacob,  to  Moses,  and  dwell  in 
the  ark;  for  the  ineffable  God,  the  Father,  could  not  accom- 
plish directly  all  that  the  Old  Testament  ascribes  to  Him  3. 


1.  /  Apol.,  v,  vi. 

2.  Dial.,  XLIX  :  «  And  Trypho  said,   Those  who  affirm  him  to  have  been  a 
man,  and  to  have  been  anointed  by  election,  and  then  to  have  become  Christ, 
appear  to  me  to  speak  more  plausibly  than  you  who  hold  those  opinions  which 
you  express.    For  we  all  expect  that  Christ  will  be  a  man  [born]  of  men  (xai  Y<*P 
•rcavre;  r,(jLET;  TOV  y^ivtbv  avQpwrcov  ££  avOpamwv  TcpoaSoxwjAev  yevriffeffSat),  and  that 
Elias  when  he  comes  will  anoint  him.    But  if  this  man  appear  to  be  Christ,  he 
must  certainly  be  known  as  man   [born]  of  men;  but  from  the  circumstance 
that  Elias  has  not  yet  come,  I  infer  that  this  man  is  not  the  Christ  ». 

3.  Dial.,  CXXVH  :  «  I  suppose  that  I  have  stated  sufficiently,  that  wherever 
God  says,  'God  went  up  from  Abraham',  or,  'The  Lord  spake  to  Moses',  and 
'The  Lord  came  down  to  behold  the  tower  which  the  sons  of  men  had  built',  or 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  97 

But  this  intermediary  of  God  in  the  Old  Testament  is  called 
God  and  is  God1.  Really  distinct  from  the  Father,  He  is 
not,  however,  opposed  to  Him  as  a  rival,  but  is  in  perfect 
accord  with  Him.  He  is  dependent  upon  the  Father  and 
His  entire  office  is  to  do  the  will  of  the  Father;  He  is  another 
God  under  God  the  Father.  Though  subordinate  to  the 
Father,  He  is  still  equal  to  the  Father;  for,  not  only  is  He  so 
like  the  Father  that  God  could  say  to  Him  at  the  beginning 
«  Let  us  make  man  to  our  image  »,  but  He  is  God,  engen- 
dered by  God  before  all  creatures,  and  to  be  the  origin  of 
all  that  exists2. 


when  'God  shut  Noe  into  the  ark',  you  must  not  imagine  that  the  unbegotten 
God  Himself  came  down  or  went  up  from  any  place.  For  the  ineffable  Father 
and  Lord  of  all  neither  has  come  to  any  place,  nor  walks,  nor  sleeps,  nor  rises 
up,  but  remains  in  his  own  place,  wherever  that  is,  quick  to  behold  and  quick 
to  hear,  having  neither  eyes  nor  ears,  but  being  of  indescribable  might  ;  and  He 
sees  all  things,  and  knows  all  things,  and  none  of  us  escapes  His  observation  ; 
and  He  is  not  moved  or  confined  to  a  spot  in  the  whole  world,  for  He  existed 
before  the  world  was  made.  How,  then,  coull  He  talk  with  any  one  or  appear 
on  the  smallest  portion  of  the  earth?  ...  Therefore,  neither  Abraham,  nor  Isaac, 
nor  Jacob,  nor  any  other  man,  saw  the  Father  and  ineffable  Lord  of  all,  and 
also  of  Christ,  but  saw  Him  who  was  according  to  His  will  His  Son,  being  God, 
and  His  Angel  because  He  ministered  to  His  will  ;  whom  also  it  pleased  Him  to 
be  born  man  by  the  Virgin;  who  was  also  fire  when  He  conversed  with  Moses 
from  the  bush  ». 

1.  Ibid.,cmvm  :  «Kal  5-rt  xopio;  wv  6  Xpiffto;,  xal  0eo-j  (iTvapxwv  ».  —  LXI  : 
«...  arco  TWV  •ypoqpwv  So'xrto,  OTI  apx^v  rcpb  Tcavraw  TWV  XTiffjtaTwv  6  0Jo;  Y£Y^VVY1X£ 
8'jv<x|«v  Tiva  £$  gavTov  Xoytxrjv,  ^TI;  xal  86?a  xvptov  unb  TOU  7rveu(j.aTo;  TOU  4y(ov 
x*),euat,  TIOTS  8k  UIOSTTOTS  8s  ao^ta,  TTOTS  8i  dqfY^oCi  TCOTS  8s  0eb;,  Trots  Ssxupio;  xai 


xat  ex  ToO  ircd  toO  Tcarpo;  OeXifaei  Y£Y8vv9j<r8at  ». 

2.  Ibid.,  cxxvi  :  «  But  Who  is  He  lhat  is  called  at  one  time  «  the  angel  of 
the  great  counsel  »,  and  «  a  man  »  by  Ezechiel,  and  «  like  the  the  Son  of  Man  • 
by  Daniel,  and  «  a  child  »  by  Isaias,  and  «  Christ  »  and  «  God  to  be  worshipped  » 
by  David,  and  «  Christ  »  and  «  a  Priest  »  by  many,  and  «  Wisdom  »  by  Solomon, 
and  "  Joseph  n  and  «  Juda  »  and  a  «  Star  »  by  Moses,  and  «  the  East  »,  by 
Zacharias,  and  «  the  Suffering  One  »  and  «  Jacob  »  and  «  Israel  »  by  Isaias  again, 
and  «  a  Rod  »,  and  «  Flower  »,  and  «  Cornerstone  »,  and  «  Son  of  God  »?  Hut 
if  you  knew,  Trypho,  you  would  not  have  blasphemed  Him,  who  has  now  come, 
and  been  born,  and  suffered,  and  ascended  to  heaven;  who  shall  also  come 
again,  and  then  your  twelve  tribes  shall  mourn.  For  if  you  had  understood 
T.  i.  7 


98  GOD. 

Saint  Irenaeus.  —  The  Son  is  God,  truly  God,  affirms 
St.  Irenaeus1.  The  chief  office  of  the  Son  is  not  to  create, 
—  though  He  is  the  hand  by  which  God  creates2,  —  but 
rather  to  reveal  the  Father.  He  manifests  Himself  first, 
from  the  beginning  and  before  the  creation  of  the  world,  to 
the  angels  and  the  powers  of  heaven,  and  then  to  men3. 
Finally,  He  became  man  to  restore  humanity,  to  bring  it 
back  to  its  fountain-head,  and  to  give  it  the  incorruptibility 
and  the  immortality  lost  by  sin.  And  «  those  (the  Cerin- 
thians)  who  assert  that  Jesus  Christ  was  simply  a  mere  man, 
begotten  by  Joseph,  remaining  in  the  bondage  of  the  old 
disobedience  are  in  a  state  of  death;  having  been  not  as 
yet  joined  to  the  Word  of  God  the  Father,  nor  receiving- 
liberty  through  the  Son  »...  «  But  being  ignorant  of  Him 
who  from  the  Virgin  is  Emmanuel,  they  die  deprived  of  His 
gift,  which  is  eternal  life;  and  not  receiving  the  uncorrupt- 
ible Word  they  remain  in  mortal  flesh  and  are  debtors  to 
death,  not  obtaining  the  antidote  of  life,  antidotum  vita? 
non  accipientes...  For  it  was  for  this  end  that  the  Word  of 
God  was  made  man,  and  He  who  was  the  Son  of  God  became 
the  Son  of  Man,  that  man,  having  been  taken  into  the  divine 
\Vord,  and  receiving  the  adoption  might  become  the  son  of 
God.  For,  by  no  other  means  could  we  have  attained  to 
incorruptibility  and  immortality.  But  how  could  we  be 
joined  to  incorruptibility  and  immortality  unless,  first, 
incorruptibility  and  immortality  had  become  that  which  we 
also  are,  so  that  the  corruptible  might  be  swallowed  up 
by  incorruptibility  and  the  mortal  by  immortality,  that  we 
might  receive  the  adoption  of  the  sons  of  God4  ». 


what  has  been  written  by  the  the  prophets,  you  wouid  not  have  denied  that 
He  was  God,  Son  of  the  only,  unbegotten,  unutterable  God  (ovx  ov  £| 
avTov  elvai  ©eiv,  TOU  [lovov  xaJ  $LYc.wr,tov  xai  appTJwj  0£ov  utov).  » 

1.  Haer.,  1.  Ill,  ch.  vi,  1,  2, 

2.  Ibid.,  1.  IV,  ch.  xx,  1;  V,  ch.  vi,  1. 

3.  Ibid.,  1.  II,  c.  xix,  9 ;  1.  IV,  c.  TI,  5,  7,  20. 

4.  Ibid.,  1.  IIF,  c.  xix,  1. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  99 

St.  Justin  and  St.  Irenaeus,  the  two  most  prominent 
Fathers  of  the  second  century,  are,  then,  strong  in  their 
affirmation  of  the  divinity  of  Christ.  Christ  is  truly  God 
and  truly  man  :  this  is  the  fundamental  article  of  their  faith 
and  of  the  faith  of  that  multitude  of  Christians  among 
whom  they  live. 

The  Condemnation  of  Theodotus.  -  The  condemnation 
of  Theodotus  offers  a  testimony  of  the  faith  of  the  Church  of 
the  second  century  no  less  striking  than  that  already  adduced. 
Under  Pope  Victor,  there  arrived  at  Rome  a  rich  Christian 
from  Byzantium.  His  name  was  Theodotus.  He  set  himself 
up  as  a  teacher ;  and,  taking  up  the  ideas  of  Cerinthus,  he 
taught  that  Jesus  was  only  a  man  like  other  men,  though 
born  in  a  miraculous  manner.  Brought  up  under  ordinary 
conditions,  he  gave  evidence  of  great  sanctity.  At  his 
baptism  on  the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  Christ,  or  the  Holy 
Ghost,  came  down  upon  him  in  the  form  of  a  dove;  and 
thus  he  received  the  power  to  perform  miracles.  But,  for 
all  that,  he  wras  not  God.  It  was  only  after  his  resurrection 
that  this  quality  was  ascribed  to  him  by  some  of  his 
disciples.  Pope  Victor  did  not  hesitate  to  condemn  such 
doctrines.  And  more,  Theodotus  was  excommunicated. 
This  happened  in  the  year  190. 

Tertullian.  —  Before  confining  our  attention  to  the 
Orient  and  commencing  the  exposition  of  the  dogmatic 
quarrel  which  led  up  to  the  council  of  Nicaea,  it  is  no  more 
than  right  to  take  up  the  important  testimony  of  Tertullian. 

Jesus  Christ  is,  he  affirms,  of  our  blood;  for  He  was 
born  of  the  Virgin  Mary.  He  is  a  perfect  man,  partaking 
of  our  passions,  our  weakness,  and  our  infirmities,  sin  alone 
excepted1.  But  He  is  equally  God.  God  was  born  from 


1.  De  came  Christi,  5-9;  /'.  L.,  II,  760-773. 


iOO  GOD. 

the  womb  of  a  mother1;  He  made  Himself  little  in  order 
to  make  us  great 2.  This  is  what  the  Apostle  teaches  when 
he  says  that  Christ,  truly  man  and  of  the  race  of  David, 
was  manifested  as  the  Son  of  God3.  In  Him  there  are, 
then,  two  states,  or  two  substances,  not  mingled  but  united 
into  one  single  person.  And  too,  the  death  of  the  cross  is 
to  be  imputed  to  God  Himself  :  we  were  purchased  by  the 
blood  of  a  God4. 

Clement  of  Alexandria,  Origen,  St.  Denis  of  Alexandria. 
—  At  the  end  of  the  second  century,  Clement,  entrusted 
with  the  care  of  the  catechetical  school  of  Alexandria,  un- 
folds the  doctrine  of  the  divinity  of  the  Son.  Born  of  the 
Father  from  eternity,  the  Logos  is  like  unto  Him,  truly  God 
like  Him-1.  Everywhere  present,  nowhere  contained,  He  is 
all  intelligent,  He  sees  all,  hears  all,  knows  all,  governs 
all6.  His  attributes  are  the  same  as  those  of  the  Father  : 
the  Father  is  in  the  Son  and  vice  versa.  We  pray  to  both  : 
they  are  but  one  and  the  same  God7.  Nevertheless,  certain 
expressions  used  by  Clement  have  been  judged  severely, 
and  that  rightly.  Speaking  of  the  relation  that  exists 
between  the  Father  and  the  Son,  he  says  «  that  the  nature 
of  the  Son  is  the  nearest  to  Him  who  is  alone  the  Almighty 
One 8  » . 


1.  De  palientia,  3. 

2.  Adv.  Marc.,  ).  II,  27. 

3.  Adv.  Prax.,  27  :  et  apostolus  (Rom.,  i,  3)  de  ulraque  ejus  [Chris ti] 
substantia  docei  :  Qui  faclus  est,  inquit,  ex  semine  David,  hie  erit  homo  et 
filius  hominis  qui  definitus  est  filius  Dei  secundum  spiritum,  hie  erit  Deus 
el  sermo  Dei  filius.  Videmus  duplicem  statum  non  confusum,  sed  conjunc- 
tum  in  una  persona,  Deum  et  hominem  Jesum.  For  the  meaning  of  status, 
cf.  Adv.  Prax.,  2. 

4.  Ad  uxor.,  II,  3  :  «  Quod  sciam,  non  sumus  noslri  sed  pretio  cmpli  el 
quali  preto?  Sanguine  Dei!  » 

5.  Cohort.,  c.  x;  P.  G.,  VIII,  228. 

6.  Strom.,  VII,  2. 

7.  Ibid.,  V  6;  VII,  12. 

8.  Ibid.,  VII,  2. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  101 

A  disciple  of  Clement  and  his  successor  as  head  of  the 
Didascalion,  upon  which  he  was  to  shed  incomparable  lustre, 
Origen  exposes  in  all  his  writings  the  doctrine  of  the  divinity 
of  Christ.  The  Son,  as  he  teaches,  is  really  distinct  from 
the  Father1,  and  engendered  by  Him  from  all  eternity2. 
And  He  is  God  not  by  virtue  of  an  extrinsic  participation  but 
essentially3  :  He  is  of  the  same  substance  as  the  Father,  and 
consubstantial  with  the  Father  4.  But,  although  of  the  same 
substance  as  the  Father,  He  nevertheless  possesses  that 
substance  less  fully  than  the  Father.  It  is,  as  it  were, 
attenuated  and  diminished  in  Him,  because  it  is  communi- 
cated5. 

Thus,  Origen  believed  wrongly  that  the  real  distinction 
between  the  Father  and  the  Son  can  rest  only  upon  a  certain 
inferiority  of  the  Son  as  regards  the  Father. 

St.  Denis  of  Alexandria,  \vhile  defending  the  real 
distinction  between  the  Father  and  the  Son  against  the 
Sabellians,  teaches  the  divinity  of  the  Son.  God,  he  writes 
in  the  second  letter  to  Pope  St.  Denis,  «  is  the  eternal  light; 
the  Son  is  the  brightness  of  this  light;  but,  the  light  is 
always  in  existence  :  hence  the  Son  is  as  eternal  as  God 
Himself6  ».  And  again,  the  Holy  Ghost  «  produces  the  word 
and  through  it  manifests  Himself;  the  word  is  an  emanation 
of  the  mind,  and  to  speak  after  human  fashion,  is  emitted 


1.  De  oral.,  15. 

2.  Periarchon,  1,  II,  6;  P.  G.,  XI,  134-135.  —  In  Jerem.,  homil.  IX,  4; 
P.  G.,  XIII,  356. 

3.  Selccta  in  Pxalmos,  homil.  XIII,  13i. 

4.  In  epist.  ad  Hebr.  fragm.,  P.  G.,  XIV,  1308  :  Sic  el  sapientia  ex  Deo 
procedens  ex  ipsa  substanlia  Dei  generatur.  Sic  nihilominus  et  secundum  si- 
militudincm  corporalis  aporrkoexesse  dicitur  aporrhoea  glorixomnipotentis 
pura  et  sincera.  Qux  ulrxque  simililudines  manifcstissime  ostendunt  com- 
munionem  substantive  essefilio  cum  patre.  Aporrhoea  enim  6(xooO<Jto;  videlur, 
id  est  unius  substantial,  cum  illo  cor  pore  ex  quo  est  vel  aporrhoea  vel  va- 
por :  Origen  then  professed  the  consubstantiality  of  the  Word. 

5.  In  Joan.,  1.  VI,  23 ;1.  XXXII,  18;  P.  G.,  XIV.  —  Contra  Celsumt\.  11,9 
1.  VI,  60;  P.  G.,  XI. 

6.  De  sent.  Dion.,  15;  P.  G.,  XXV. 


102  GOD. 

from  the  heart  by  the  mouth ;  the  spirit  is  like  the  immanent 
word.  Thus  the  spirit  is  as  it  were,  the  Father  of  the 
word  and  exists  in  it;  the  word  is,  so  to  speak,  the  daughter 
of  the  spirit...  Thus  each  is  in  each,  although  one  is  dis- 
tinct from  the  other,  and  they  are  one  although  they  are 
two.  And  it  is  thus  that  the  Father  and  the  Son  are  said 
to  be  one  and  to  be  in  one  another1  ». 

Arianism.  —  About  the  year  318,  Arius  taught  at 
Alexandria  a  doctrine  which  attracted  widespread  attention. 
We  acknowledge,  said  he,  but  one  sole  God,  engendered 
and  not  created,  alone  eternal,  alone  without  beginning, 
alone  true,  alone  immortal,  alone  perfect,  alone  powerful, 
the  creator  and  ruler  of  all  things,  immutable,  invisible  to 
the  eyes  of  all,  even  to  those  of  the  Son.  God  was  not  always 
Father.  He  was  at  first  alone.  But  wishing  to  create  the 
world,  He  created  directly  a  certain  being  called  the  Logos, 
Wisdom,  that  He  might  create  all  other  beings  through  Him. 
The  Logos  was  made  out  of  nothing,  and  not  out  of  the 
divine  substance;  there  was  a  time  when  he  did  not  exist, 
and  he  was  created  not  necessarily  but  voluntarily.  He  is 
the  only  one  of  all  creatures  created  immediately  by  God 
that  he  might  be  the  creator  of  all  other  beings.  Hence,  he 
has  towards  God  and  the  world  a  very  singular  relation- 
ship, on  account  of  which  we  call  him,  though  improperly, 
God.  He  is  not  essentially  good,  for  he  is  of  a  changeable 
and  mutable  nature,  and  uses  his  free  will  as  he  chooses; 
if  he  remains  good,  it  is  because  he  wills  it.  But  God, 
foreseeing  his  merits,  adopted  him  as  Son.  There  results 
from  this  adoptive  sonship  no  real  participation  in  the 
divinity,  no  real  resemblance  to  it.  God  can  have  no  like. 
The  Logos  became  flesh  in  this  sense  that  it  fulfils  in  Jesus 
Christ  the  function  of  soul. 


1.  Ibid.,  18. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  103 

Arius' whole  Christology,  then,  resolves  itself  into  these 
three  propositions.  God,  being  unable  to  create  directly 
the  material  world,  creates  directly  the  Logos,  in  order  to 
use  it  as  intermediary  in  the  creation  of  the  material  world. 
The  Logos  being  the  sole  immediate  creature  of  God  destined 
to  become  the  creator  of  all  other  beings,  receives  improperly 
the  title  of  God.  This  Logos  is  free  to  choose  between  good 
and  evil;  and  God,  foreseeing  that  he  will  always  choose 
the  good,  adopts  him,  because  of  his  merits,  as  His  son  l. 

This  concept  of  the  Logos  as  a  creature  and  a  demiurge, 
and  adoptive  Son  of  GoJ,  although  contrary  to  tradition, 
was  not  entirely  new. 

Philo,  too,  held  that  God,  being  a  spiritual  being, 
could  not  create  the  material  world  without  the  assistance 
of  a  created  Logos.  Likewise,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
second  century,  Cerinthus  had  taught  the  doctrine  of  adop- 
tion. And,  at  the  end  of  the  same  century,  both  in  Asia 
Minor  and  at  Rome,  Theodotus  had  maintained  the  opinion 
that  Christ  was  not  God,  but  the  greatest  of  the  prophets 
and,  as  such,  the  Son  of  God  par  excellence.  Paul  of 
Samosata  professed  almost  the  same  doctrine.  It  is  safe  to 
say,  then,  -that  all  the  ideas  which  made  up  Arianism  had 
already  been  put  forth  by  heretics.  Arius'  whole  origi- 
nality lay  in  this,  that  he  succeeded  in  bringing  all  these 
scattered  fragments  into  one  synthesis,  and  fought  with  a 
wonderful  zeal,  or  stubborness,  to  make  his  doctrine 
triumph2. 

The  Beginning  of  the  Fight  against  Arianism.  —  St. 
Alexander,  bishop  of  Alexandria,  after  having  sought,  by 


1.  The  doctrine  of  Arius  is  taken   from  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to  SI. 
Alexander,  bishop  of  Alexandria,  and  which  is  quoted  by  St.  Alhanasius.    Of- 
De  Synodit,  16;  P.  G.,  XXVI,  708-712. 

2.  Cf.  LE  BVCHELKT,  ant.  Arianisme,  in  Did.  de  Iheol.  cath.  col.  1793.  — 
DucHEsne,  Hisloire  ancienne  de  I'Kylise,  t.  II,  c.  IT,  Arius  el  le  concilc  dc 
Nicec.  —  TIXERONT,  History  of  Dogmas,  II,  21-37. 


104  GOD. 

peaceful  means,  to  bring  Arius  back  to  the  truth,  had  to 
prohibit  him  formally  from  teaching  his  errors.  To  this 
Arius  paid  no  attention;  so  the  struggle  began. 

In  the  year  320,  Alexander  convoked  in  council  all 
the  bishops  of  Egypt.  Arius  was  condemned.  He  sought 
refuge  with  Eusebius  of  Nicomedia,  who  strengthened  him 
in  his  opinions  and  denounced  to  the  eastern  bishops  what 
he  called  the  narrow-mindedness  of  Ihe  bishop  of  Alexandria. 

By  that  time  the  doctrine  of  Arius  commenced  to  be 
known  in  the  West.  Osius,  bishop  of  Cordova,  showed  Cons- 
tantine  how  urgent  it  was  to  put  a  stop  to  Arianism. 
Athanasius,  deacon  of  Alexandria,  attacked  the  new  heresy. 
Constantino,  dismayed  at  the  proportions  the  quarrel  took 
on,  summoned  all  the  bishops  of  the  world  toNicaea1. 

The  Council  of  Nicaea.  —  So,  all  these  bishops  were 
called  together  at  Nicasa,  by  Constantine,  in  the  year  325. 
Three  hundred  and  eighteen  of  them  came,  almost  all  from 
the  East.  From  the  West  there  came  some  few,  among 
whom  \vere  Osius,  bishop  of  Cordova,  Cecilian  of  Carthage, 
and  the  two  Roman  priests,  Victor  and  Vincent,  as  repre- 
sentatives of  Pope  Sylvester. 

From  the  very  first  session  several  tendencies  among 
the  Fathers  of  the  council  made  themselves  manifest.  The 
great  majority  of  the  Fathers  (about  300),  declared  them- 
selves in  favor  of  the  doclrine  of  Alexander.  A  few  (only 
three  or  four)  upheld  Arianism.  The  others,  with  Eusebius 
of  Nicomedia  and  Eusebius  of  Caesarea  at  their  head, 
fluctuated  between  these  two  extremes. 

Eusebius  of  Caesarea  drew  up  a  symbol  which  he  read 
before  the  council.  Following  is  the  principal  passage  : 


1.  See  the  account  of  the  early  opposition  to  Arianism  in  the  able  work  of 
DE  BROGUE.  L'Eglise  et  I'Empire  romain  au  IV*  siecle,  Rtgne  de  Cons- 
tanlin,  i.  I,  Ire  part.,  c.  in. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY,  105 

«  We  believe  in  only  one  God,  the  Father  almighty,  the 
Creator  of  all  things,  visible  and  invisible.  And  in  the 
Lord,  Jesus  Christ,  the  Word  of  God,  God  of  God,  light  of 
light,  life  of  life,  the  only  Son,  the  first  born  of  all 
creatures,  begotten  by  the  Father  from  eternity,  by  whom 
all  things  were  made,  and  who,  for  our  salvation,  became 
flesh  and  dwelt  amongst  us...1  ». 

Eusebius  himself  tells  us  that,  as  a  whole,  his  symbol 
was  accepted  because  there  was  nothing  objectionable  in  it. 
But,  as  it  was  silent  on  some  of  the  salient  points  of  the 
Arian  controversy,  it  was  modified  by  the  introduction  of 
some  things  and  the  suppression  of  some  useless  words. 

The  result  was  the  Nicene  symbol,  which  reads  as 
follows  : 

«  We  believe  in  one  God,  the  Father  almighty,  the 
author  of  all  things,  visible  and  invisible;  and  in  one  Lord, 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  the  only  begotten  of  the  Father, 
that  is,  of  the  essence  of  the  Father,  God  of  God,  light  of 
light,  true  God  of  true  God;  begotten  and  not  made, 
con  substantial  with  the  Father,  by  whom  all  things  were 
made;  who  for  us,  men,  and  for  our  salvation,  came  down, 
became  incarnate,  was  made  man,  suffered,  arose  again 
the  third  day,  ascended  into  heaven  and  he  will  come  to 
judge  the  living  and  the  dead;  and  in  the  Holy  Ghost. 

«  As  for  those  who  say  :  There  was  a  time  when  He  was 
not;  before  He  was  begotten,  He  was  not;  He  was  made  out 
of  nothing,  or  out  of  some  other  substance  or  essence  (=;  eTepa? 
6zo<77aa£u>s  TJ  ojff(a?) ;  the  Son  of  God  is  a  created  being,  change- 
able, mutable;  to  them  the  Catholic  Church  says  ana- 
thema ». 

This  symbol  was  accepted  and  signed  by  all  the  bishops 
present,  except  two,  and  these  two  were  deposed  and  exiled 
as  well  as  Arius,  by  Constantine.  The  same  fate  awaited  Euse- 


1.  Cited  in  HEFELE,  Hist,  des  Conciles,  trad.  Delarc-Leclercq,  t.  I,  I"  part., 
p.  437. 


106  GOD. 

bius  of  Nicomedia,  who  was  exiled  some  time  after  for  having 
upheld  the  Arians  of  Alexandria. 

So,  Arianism  was  officially  condemned.  The  Arians 
had  said  :  «  The  Word  is  the  first  creature  of  God  »  ;  the  coun- 
cil pronounced  :  «  The  Word  is  God  of  God,  engendered  and 
not  made,  consubstantial  with  the  Father  ». 


ARTICLE  III 
The  Holy  Ghost  is  God. 

Doctrine  of  the  Church.  —  We  believe  that  the  person 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  God,  just  as  the  Father  is,  just  as  the  Son 
is  :  we  believe  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  God  in  the  most  abso- 
lute manner. 

The  reason  for  this  lies  in  the  consideration  that  the  Holy 
Ghost  possesses  the  same  substance  as  the  Father  and  the 
Son,  for  just  as  the  Father  and  the  Son,  the  Holy  Ghost  has 
nothing  proper  or  distinct  but  the  relative  character  which 
constitutes  his  personality. 

And  this  doctrine,  thus  understood,  has  been  formally 
defined.  The  council  of  Nicoea,  in  putting  the  third  person 
of  the  Blessed  Trinity  on  a  level  with  the  person  of  the 
Son,  merely  pointed  out  the  divinity  of  the  Holy  Ghost1. 
The  Fathers  of  this  council  were  concerned  above  all  with 
the  definition  of  the  absolute  divinity  of  the  Son.  But  the 
council  of  Constantinople,  in  381,  had  principally  in  view 
the  definition  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Ghost  against  the 
Macedonians.  And,  after  declaring  again  the  definition  of  the 
divinity  of  the  Son,  they  pronounced  the  following  profes- 
sion :  «  Vie  believe  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  is  Lord,  who 
gives  life,  who  proceeds  from  the  Father,  to  whom,  together 


1.  DENZ.,  5i. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  107 

with  the  Father  and  the  Son,  honor  and  glory  are  due,  and 
who  spoke  through  the  prophets1  ». 

Yet,  the  Fathers  of  Constantinople  avoided  declaring 
explicitly  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  God.  Their  teaching,  howe- 
ver, was  equivalent  to  such  a  declaration;  and,  if  they  did 
not  make  use  of  the  explicit  terms,  this  was  due  to  reasons 
which  the  history  of  the  controversy  will  reveal. 

We  shall  now  proceed  to  find  the  foundations  of  this 
dogma  of  our  faith  in  the  New  Testament  and  in  the  Patristic 
Tradition. 


THE   NEW    TESTAMENT 

Direct  Affirmations  are  Wanting.  —  The  divinity  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  is  not  directly  affirmed  in  the  New  Testament. 
This  gap  will,  in  the  fourth  century,  be  the  great  argu- 
ment of  the  Macedonians  :  to  all  the  arguments  brought  forth 
they  will  reply  :  «  Novelty,  not  Scriptural  ». 

Indirect  Affirmations  Numerous.  —  The  divinity  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  is  often  taught  in  the  New  Testament  in  an  indi- 
rect manner,  that  is,  by  the  attribution  to  the  Spirit  of  names 
and  works  belonging  only  to  God. 

Thus,  there  is  ascribed  to  the  Holy  Ghost  knowledge 
wholly  divine.  He  is  the  Spirit  of  truth  wrho  will  come  to 
give  testimony  in  favor  of  the  Incarnate  Word2.  The  Holy 
Ghost  it  is  who  has  revealed  to  us  the  Wisdom  mysteriously 
hidden  in  the  bosom  of  God,  «  For  the  Spirit  searcheth  all 
things,  yea  the  deep  things  of  God3  ».  It  is  just  as  natural 
for  the  Spirit  to  know  these  deep  things  of  God  as  it  is  for 
the  spirit  of  man  to  know  what  goes  on  within  him  :  «  For 


1.  UENZ.,  86. 

2.  JN.,  xv,  26. 

3.  /  Cor.,  ii,  10. 


108  GOD. 

what  man  knoweth  the  things  of  a  man,  but  the  spirit  of  a 
man  that  is  in  him?  So  the  things  also  that  are  of  God  no 
man  knoweth,  but  the  Spirit  of  God  » l.  This  passage  in  the 
first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians  would  remind  one  of  that 
text  from  the  Synoptics,  in  which  almost  all  critics  agree  in 
seeing  the  divinity  of  the  Son  affirmed  :  «  No  one  knoweth 
the  Son,  but  the  Father  :  neither  doth  any  one  know  the 
Father,  but  the  Son,  and  he  to  whom  it  shall  please  the  Son 
to  reveal  him2  ». 

Moreover,  the  very  sanctity  of  God  is  recognized  in  the 
Holy  Spirit.  He  is  the  Holy  Spirit  not  only  in  this  that  He  is 
the  principle  of  all  sanctification,  but  also  in  this  that  He 
possesses  essential  sanctity,  in  that  He  is  God.  Such  is  the 
doctrine  found  in  most  of  the  epistles  of  St.  Paul. 

Let  us  observe,  also,  that  the  Holy  Ghost  appears  through- 
out the  New  Testament  as  the  author  of  truly  divine  ope- 
rations. St.  Peter  tells  us  that  «  no  prophecy  of  Scripture  is 
made  by  private  interpretation.  For  prophecy  came  not  by 
the  will  of  man  at  any  time  :  but  the  holy  men  of  God  spoke, 
inspired  by  the  Holy  Ghost3  ».  Author  of  the  prophecies, 
the  Holy  Ghost  is  also,  but  with  the  Father  and  the  Son,  the 
author  of  the  Incarnation  of  the  Son\  of  all  sanctification  or 
justification5,  of  charisms  and  all  the  extraordinary  gifts  with 
which  some  are  favored  for  the  good  of  the  Church6. 

Is  is  not  surprising,  then,  to  find  that  the  Holy  Ghost 
is  always  placed  on  the  same  level  as  the  Father  and  the  Son7, 
and  that  the  same  honor  that  is  paid  to  the  Father  and  the 
Son  is  regarded  as  His  clue  :  «  Fly  fornication,  »  says  St.  Paul 


1.  /  Cor.,  ii,  11. 

2.  MAT.,  xi,  27. 

3.  II  Pet.  i,  21. 

4.  LUKE,  i,  35. 

5.  /  Cor.,  vi,  11. 

G.  I  Cor.    xii,  4-11. 

7.  MAT.,  XXVIH,    18-30;  JN.,  xiv,  16;  xv,  26;  Gal.,  iv,  6;  II  Cor.,  i,  21-22; 
xm,  13. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  109 

to  the  Corinthians...  «  Know  you  not  that  your  members  are 
the  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  is  in  you,  whom  you  have 
from  God  ;  and  you  are  not  your  own?  For  you  are  bought 
with  a  great  price.  Glorify  and  bear  God  in  your  body  1  ». 
St.  Peter  speaks  in  the  same  strain  when  he  condemns  Ana- 
nias and  tells  him  that  to  lie  to  the  Holy  Ghost  is  to  lie  to  God2. 


TRADITION    OF    THE    FATHERS. 

General  Idea.  —  The  greater  number  of  the  Fathers  of 
the  first  three  centuries  but  transmitted  the  doctrine  of  the 
New  Testament  on  the  Holy  Ghost.  Their  theological  discus- 
sions were  centered  upon  the  person  of  the  Son  and  his  rela- 
tion to  the  Father. 

Even  Arianism  struck  at  the  Holy  Ghost  only  indirectly. 
As  the  Son,  said  Arius,  is  the  first  born  of  the  Father,  so 
the  Holy  Ghost  is  the  noblest  of  the  Son's  creatures.  Hence 
it  is  that  the  Nicene  Fathers  did  not  enter  into  lengthy  dis- 
cussion about  the  Holy  Ghost.  They  were  satisfied,  as  we 
have  said,  to  place  Him  in  the  same  rank  as  the  Father  and 
the  Son. 

Now,  about  the  year  360,  the  Arians,  unsuccessful  in  the 
attempt  to  promulgate  their  ideas  about  the  Son,  tried  to 
renew  the  struggle  by  making  the  Holy  Ghost  the  object  of 
their  attack.  An  Arian  bishop,  named  Macedonius,  taught 
that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  only  a  creature  which  ranks  in  dignity 
between  God  and  the  angels.  He  is  not,  therefore,  of  the 
same  substance  as  the  Father  and  the  Son,  whose  servant 
and  minister  He  is.  There  was  formed  a  party  called 
the  sect  of  the  Macedonians,  or  Pneumatomachists.  The 
chief  defenders  of  the  divinity  of  the  Holy  Ghost  were 


1.  /  Cor.,  vi,  18-20. 
1.  Acts,  v,  3-5. 


110  GOD. 

St.  Athanasius,   St.  Basil,  and   St.    Gregory  of  Nazianzus. 

St.  Athanasius.  —  The  main  object  of  the  Pneuma- 
tomachists  was  to  show  that  the  Holy  Ghost,  being  but  a 
creature  of  the  Son,  is  inferior  to  the  Son,  just  as  the  Son, 
who  is  a  creature  of  the  Father,  is  of  necessity  inferior  to  the 
Father.  St.  Athanasius'  argument  consisted  simply  in  show- 
ing from  texts  taken  from  the  Scriptures  that  the  Holy  Ghost 
is  related  to  the  Son  just  as  the  Son  is  related  to  the  Father. 
And,  since  the  Son  is  equal  to  the  Father,  the  Holy  Ghost 
must  be  equal  to  both  the  Father  and  the  Son.  St.  Athana- 
sius, as  we  can  see,  makes  use  of  an  indirect  argument.  He 
holds  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  God  because  there  are  in  Him  pro- 
perties which  belong  only  to  God.  We  find  an  example  of 
this  reasoning  in  the  first  letter  of  the  holy  Doctor  to  Sera- 
pion,  in  which,  in  order  to  show  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is 
really  creator,  he  says  :  «  How,  without  injustice  to  the  Son, 
can  we  call  Him  a  creature  who  is  united  to  the  Son  as  the 
Son  is  to  the  Father,  and  who  is  glorified  with  the  Father 
and  the  Son,  concerning  whom  we  have  a  dogma  contained 
in  the  dogma  of  the  Son,  and  who  does  everything  that  the 
Father  does  through  the  Son1  »? 

We  must  remark,  however,  that  St.  Athanasius  avoids 
saying  openly  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  God.  The  explanation 
of  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  adversary  tries  to 
prove  by  indirect  argument  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  not  God, 
and  St.  Athanasius  endeavors  merely  to  retort  the  argument. 

Moreover,  the  explicit  affirmation  of  the  divinity  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  would  merely  have  provoked  the  hostility  of  the 
adversaries  to  the  highest  degree ;  for  even  those  among  the 
Pneumatomachists  who  acknowledged  the  equality  of  the 
Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost  would  not  listen  to  the  formal  decla- 
ration that  the  Holy  Ghost  was  God.  This  term,  they  objec- 
ted, was  not  scriptural. 


\.  Ad  Scrap.,  Epist.  I,  31.  P.  G.  XXVI,  601. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  ill 

St.  Basil.  —  St.  Basil,  appointed  to  the  bishopric  of 
Caesarea  in  the  year  370,  headed  the  orthodox  defense.  He, 
too,  was  generally  content  with  showing-  that  since  the  Holy 
Ghost  possessed  'all  the  attributes  of  God  He  ought  to  be  con- 
sidered God.  If  he  adopted  such  tactics,  it  was  only  to  avoid 
the  endless  difficulties  to  which  any  more  direct  terms  would 
inevitably  have  given  rise.  Of  this  we  are  informed  by 
St.  Gregory  of  Nazianzus,  in  his  panegyric  of  St.  Basil. 
Gregory  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  this  way  of  acting  was 
inspired  by  God  to  further  the  struggle  against  Arianism1. 

Whatever  we  are  to  think  about  such  a  method,  it  throws 
invaluable  light  upon  the  condition  of  religious  affairs  towards 
the  end  of  the  fourth  century.  It  shows  that  not  only  the 
simple  faithful  but  even  the  most  illustrious  doctors  of  the 
Church  were  strongly  affected  by  the  theological  questions 
then  under  discussion.  The  dogma  which  they  defended  was 
of  vital  importance  to  every  one.  The  least  innovation 
in  such  matters  gave  rise  to  a  sort  of  revolution.  Christian 
faith  was  a  sacred  trust  and  was  guarded  with  jealous  care. 
No  one  was  permitted  to  expound  it  more  rigorously  or  to 
analyze  it  more  minutely  than  was  absolutely  called  for  to 
defend  it  against  heresy. 

St.  Gregory  Nazianzene.  —  Afler  the  death  of  Basil,  in 
379,  when  Gregory  Nazianzene,  now  leader  of  the  orthodox 
party,  arrived  at  Constantinople  to  inculcate  there  the  dogma 
of  the  divinity  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  he  openly  declared  that 
the  Holy  Ghost  is  God.  His  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  ex- 
posed mainly  in  five  of  his  discourses  called  the  Theological 
Discourses.  Following  is  the  order  of  ideas  found  in  the 
fifth  of  these  discourses.  First,  he  puts  this  question  :  «  You 
say  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  not  scriptural  ».  He  answers  by 
this  dilemma  :  «  The  Holy  Ghost  is  either  God  or  a  creature ; 


1.  In  laudem  Basilii,  or.  xi.in,  69. 


112  GOD. 

there  is  no  alternative  If  He  is  a  creature,  tell  me,  pray, 
why  do  we  believe  in  Him  ?  To  believe  in  something-  is  quite 
different  from  believing  something.  We  can  believe  some- 
thing created,  but  we  can  believe  only  in  the  divinity. 
If  the  Holy  Ghost,  then,  is  God,  He  is  neither  creature,  nor 
servant,  nor  any  thing  of  the  kind.  »  Then  follows  a  regular 
series  of  objections  and  answers.  The  last  argument  of  the 
Macedonians  is  the  same  as  the  first  :  «  Not  scriptural  ». 
This  Gregory  answers  by  showing  that  his  adversary  is 
the  slave  of  words1. 

The  Council  of  Constantinople,  381.  —  Not  only  did 
St  Gregory  of  Nazianzus  overthrow  the  objections  of  the  Ma- 
cedonians by  arguments  that  seem  to  be  incontrovertible, 
but  he  worked  for  their  condemnation. 

It  was  in  the  year  381.  Theodosius,  having  become  em- 
peror of  the  East,  showed  himself  altogether  in  favor  of 
orthodoxy.  At  the  request  of  Gregory  of  Nazianzus,  he 
convoked  the  council  of  Constanlinople. 

This  assembly,  unlike  that  of  Niccea,  was  not  troubled 
by  dissension.  The  overthrow  of  Arianism  and  Macedo- 
nianism  was  complete.  The  Macedonian  bishops  were  called 
to  the  council  and  36  of  them  came;  but  it  was  only  to  hear 
the  condemnation  of  their  doctrines. 

The  Fathers  of  the  council,  however,  not  wishing  to 
abuse  their  power,  introduced  into  their  symbol  neither  the 
word  God  nor  that  of  consubstantial  in  their  designation  of 
the  nature  of  the  Holy  Ghost2.  This  was  only  to  avoid  keeping- 
open  the  rupture  which  seemed  now  to  be  closed. 


1.  TheoL  V,  or.  XXXI,  6,  10,  21. 

2.  DENZ.,  86.  Some  writers  think  that  the  Constantinople  Creed  did  not  ori- 
ginate at  the  council,  but  was  in  existence  as  early  as  the  middle  of  the  fourth 
century.    Their  arguments  are  not  convincing.    We  still  hold  the  traditional 
opinion.    Cf.  TIXERONT,  History  of  Dogmas,  11,  p.  6i. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  113 

ARTICLE    IV 
The  Three  Divine  Persons  are  Consubstantial. 

Doctrine  of  the  Church.  —  The  doctrine  of  the  Divine 
Unity  is  just  as  formally  expressed  in  the  New  Testament  as 
it  is  in  the  Old.  Now,  in  the  New  Testament,  it  is  clearly 
taught  that  God  is  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  The  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Ghost  are  not  merely  three  modes  of  being1  of 
the  same  existence;  they  are  three  really  distinct  terms  having 
but  one  and  the  same  divine  life,  three  centers  in  which  the 
divine  life  takes  on  a  particularly  distinctive  character  of 
intensity.  They  are  three  persons,  or  hypostases,  of  the  same 
substance. 

We  have  now  seen  sufficiently  what  is  the  trinity  of 
persons;  let  us  now  turn  our  attention  to  the  unity  of  sub- 
stance. 

And,  first  of  all,  if  there  be  but  one  God  and  that  God 
exist  in  three  persons,  it  is  quite  evident  that  there  can  be  in 
God  neither  absolute  unity  nor  absolute  trinity;  in  other 
words,  there  must  be,  in  God,  a  link  so  coupling  the  unity 
and  the  trinity  as  to  make  them  identical  and  cause  them  to 
be  inseparably  merged  together. 

What  can  this  element  be? 

Let  us  determine  this  by  the  elimination  of  the  heretical 
opinions  which  were  held  in  the  fourth  century  and  which  we 
shall  meet  farther  on. 

Peter,  Paul,  and  John  love  one  another.  Then  I  say 
that  they  are  three  persons,  of  course,  and  that  these  three 
persons  are  one.  But  is  it  in  this  sense  that  I  say  that  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  are  but  one?  No;  for 
Peter,  Paul,  and  John  are  made  one  only  by  the  bond  of  love 
which  unites  them,  and  the  union  existing  between  them  is 
called  a  moral  union.  This  union  does  not  prevent  Peter, 
Paul,  and  John  from  being  three  subjects  really  and  numeri- 

T.    I.  8 


i  1  '*  GOD. 

cally  distinct  as  to  person  and  individual  substance.  Were 
the  union  existing-  between  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost  of  such  a  nature  as  this,  it  is  quite  evident  that  there 
would  be  three  Gods  and  not  one  God. 

Peter,  Paul,  and  John  are  three  men,  that  is,  three  per- 
sons having  the  same  specific  nature.  Hence,  I  say  that  they 
are  three  persons  and  that  these  three  persons  are  but  one. 
Is  it  in  this  sense  that  I  say  that  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the 
Holy  Ghost  are  but  one?  No;  for  Peter,  Paul,  and  John  are 
united  as  one  by  the  bond  of  the  human  nature  which  they 
all  possess;  and  this  is  called  specific  union.  Nor  does  this 
specific  union  prevent  Peter,  Paul,  and  John  from  being  three 
really  and  numerically  distinct  subjects  both  as  to  person  and 
individual  substance.  If  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost  were  bound  together  by  such  a  specific  union  only,  it  is 
clear,  again,  that  they  would  constitute  three  Gods  and  not 
only  one  God. 

Again  let  us  suppose  that  Peter  is  Paul's  father,  and 
Paul  is  John's.  I  would  say  that  they  are  three  persons,  and 
that  these  three  persons  are  but  one.  Is  this  my  meaning 
when  I  say  that  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  are 
but  one?  Clearly  not.  Peter,  Paul,  and  John  are  but  one  in 
the  sense  that  they  are  bound  together  by  the  ties  of  blood; 
and  the  union  existing  between  them  is  called  union  of  kin. 
It  does  not  prevent  the  three  from  being  really  and  numeri- 
cally distinct  both  as  to  person  and  individual  substance. 
So,  too,  were  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  bound 
together  only  by  such  ties  as  these,  clearly  there  would  be 
three  Gods  and  not  only  one  God. 

What  unites  the  three  persons  into  one  Godhead  is,  then, 
something  more  than  the  bond  of  love,  or  of  community  of 
species,  or  blood ;  and  the  union  resulting  therefrom  is  more 
than  the  moral  union,  or  the  union  of  kin,  or  the  specific 
union.  In  what,  then,  does  it  consist? 

It  consists  in  this  that  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost  have  but  one  and  the  same  substance,  but  one  and  the 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  115 

same  life,  so  that  this  substance,  this  life,  whether  in  the  Son 
or  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  is  in  no  way  inferior,  as  subordina- 
tionism  would  have  it,  to  that  of  the  Father;  it  is  of  such  a 
nature  that  this  substance,  or  life,  in  the  Son  and  the  Holy 
Ghost  does  not  merely  resemble,  as  the  subordinationists  said 
after  they  became  semi-Arians,  that  of  the  Father;  but  it  is 
of  such  a  nature  that  the  substance,  or  life,  whether  of  the 
Father,  the  Son,  or  the  Holy  Ghost,  is  absolutely  identical  in 
its  inmost  being,  its  properties,  and  in  all  that  goes  to  con- 
stitute its  absolute  infinity.  The  Father,  the  Son,  and  the 
Holy  Ghost  have,  then,  identically  the  same  substance,  or 
life;  hence,  they  are  consubstantial,  cjxcouawi1. 

Between  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  there 
is  nothing  distinctive,  and,  consequently,  nothing  which 
constitutes  person,  but  the  relation  of  origin,  as  St.  Thomas 
phrases  it  :  Distinctio  in  divinis  non  fit  nisi  per  relationem 
originis. 

These  relations  of  origin  are  not  something  that  did 
exist  and  now  exist  no  longer.  They  are  from  all  eternity, 
having  no  beginning,  no  end. 

Such  is  the  dogma  of  consubstantiality.  It  was  formally 
defined,  in  the  sense  which  we  have  just  explained,  by  the 
council  of  Nicaea  (325  j2 ;  and  this  definition  was  repeated  by 
the  councils  of  Constantinople  (381)3,  Ephesus  (431)4,  Chal- 
cedon  (451  )5,  Constantinople  (551) 6,  Constantinople  (680- 
681)7. 

Let  us  examine  the  foundations  of  this  doctrine  in  the 
New  Testament  and  in  the  Tradition  of  the  Fathers. 


1.  The  word  6|Aoov<7io;  (6}x6;  =  ouata)  means  that  the  Father,  the  Son  and 
the  HolyGhost  hare  the  same  essence  or  substance,  the  same  inmost  or  absolute 
being. 

2.  DENZ.,  5i. 

3.  Ibid.,  88. 

4.  Ibid.,  123. 

5.  Ibid.,  148. 

6.  /fttd.,220. 
1.  Ibid.,  290. 


H6  GOD 


THE   NEW   TESTAMENT. 

The  Synoptic  Gospels  and  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul.  —  Do 
we  find  the  doctrine  of  consubstantiality  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment? In  the  synoptic  Gospels  and  in  the  epistles  of  St.  Paul, 
we  find  it  frequently  repeated  that  there  is  but  one  God,  the 
Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  It  follows,  then,  that  these 
writings  teach  that  the  trinity  does  not  exclude  unity  in  God, 
nor  does  unity  exclude  the  trinity.  There  must  be  some 
mysterious  bond  which  merges  the  two  together.  But,  of 
the  nature  of  this  bond,  the  writings  mentioned  say  nothing. 

St.  John's  Gospel.  —  St.  John's  Gospel  is  more  explicit; 
especially  in  the  celebrated  text  in  which,  addressing  the 
Jews  who  decry  Him  as  blasphemer,  Jesus  says  :  «  My  Father 
and  I  are  one1.  »  This  declaration,  taken  simpliciter  et  sine 
addito,  writes  St.  Thomas,  can  be  understood  as  neither  a 
moral  union,  nor  a  conformity  of  will,  nor  unity  of  power 
or  common  operation  ;  it  means  a  metaphysical  relation, 
identity  of  nature,  or  of  essence2. 

The  attempt  has  sometimes  been  made  to  restrict  the  im- 
port of  this  text  by  explaining  it  in  the  light  of  this  other  text 
found  a  little  further  on  in  the  same  Gospel  :  «  Holy  Father, 
keep  them  in  thy  name,  whom  thou  hast  given  me  :  that 

they  may  be  one,  as  we  also  are And  not  for  them  only 

do  I  pray,  but  for  them  also  who  through  their  word  shall 
believe  in  me  :  That  they  all  may  be  one,  as  thou,  Father,  in 
me,  and  I  in  thee  :  that  they  also  may  be  one  in  us  :  that  the 
world  may  believe  that  thou  hast  sent  me.  And  the  glory 
which  thou  hast  given  me,  I  have  given  to  them  :  that  they 


1.  JN.,  x,  so. 

2.  In  Joan.  Evang.,  cap.  x,  lect.  V. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  117 

may  be  one  as  we  also  are  one.  I  in  them,  and  thou  in  me  : 
that  they  may  be  made  perfect  in  one  ;  and  the  world  may 
know  that  thou  hast  sent  me,  and  hast  loved  them,  as  thou 
hast  also  loved  me1.  »  In  this  passage,  they  hold,  there  is 
question  of  nothing  but  conformity  of  will,  or  action,  between 
the  Savior  and  His  Father  ;  for  the  union  between  the  Father 
and  the  Son  is  here  represented  just  as  that  which  Christ 
wishes  to  reign  between  God  and  men.  But  to  institute  such 
parallelism  here  is  altogether  gratuitous  ;  for  one  might  well 
reply  that  the  Savior  represents  the  union  which  exists 
between  the  Father  and  Himself  as  a  model  and  offers  this  as 
a  motive  for  the  union  of  the  faithful  with  God.  And  we 
must  observe,  furthermore,  that  unity  of  will,  power,  know- 
ledge, action,  and  life  between  the  Father  and  the  Son, 
everywhere  affirmed  in  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  is  almost 
equivalent  to  an  affirmation  of  the  unity  of  substance. 


TRADITION    OF   THE   FATHERS. 

General  Idea.  —  The  main  characteristic  feature  of  the 
New  Testament,  in  so  far  as  the  concept  of  God  is  concerned, 
is,  as  we  have  seen,  the  clear  way  in  which  it  reveals  the 
existence  of  one  God,  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  God  is 
one;  but,  despite  the  essential  unity  which  it  maintains,  the 
Godhead,  after  that,  seems,  as  the  Fathers  express  it,  to  be 
distributed  as  it  were,  between  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the 
Holy  Ghost. 

Now  this  doctrine  was  held,  also,  as  a  fundamental  be- 
lief by  the  Apologist  Fathers  and  by  the  Fathers  of  the  third 
century.  Even  the  writings  of  the  heretics,  though  they 
cannot  be  taken  as  direct  evidences  of  the  faith  of  the  Church, 
have,  nevertheless,  great  importance  as  indirect  evidences. 

1.  JN.,  svn,  11,  20-23. 


118  GOD. 

They  keep,  though  with  a  perverted  sense,  the  terms  which, 
in  the  Church,  were  expressive  of  true  doctrine;  whilst  the 
condemnations  pronounced  against  them,  serve  to  bring  out 
by  contrast  the  opposition  which  existed  between  their  errors 
and  the  authentic  doctrine. 

The  Dogma  of  Consubstantiality,  from  the  Second  Cen- 
tury until  the  beginning  of  the  Fourth  Century.  —  To  the 
Jewish  philosophers  who  persisted  in  clinging  to  the  Mono- 
theism of  the  Old  Testament  and  taunted  the  Christians  with 
having  many  gods,  and  the  Pagans  who  upbraided  them  for 
their  atheism,  the  Apologists  of  the  second  century  said  : 
«  \Ve  hold  that  there  is  one  God,  the  Father,  a  Son,  God,  and 
the  Holy  Ghost;  and  we  show  their  power  in  unity,  and  their 
distinction  in  rank1.  »  They  admit,  then,  in  God,  a  bond 
through  which  there  is  an  indescribable  blending  of  unity 
and  trinity;  and  furthermore,  they  prove  this.  It  consists  in 
this  that  the  Son  is  engendered  from  the  Father  before  all 
creatures,  writes  St.  Justin2.  But  this  generation,  adds 
Tatian,  takes  place  without  division,  after  the  manner  of  a 
torch  which  imparts  its  fire  to  other  torches3.  We  must 
admit  that  the  doctrine  of  the  bond  of  unity  between  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  has  not  yet  reached  that 
perfection  to  which  it  will  attain  under  the  Nicene  Fathers. 
Nevertheless,  we  can  see  that  all  that  was  required  to  bring 
it  to  this  perfection  was  to  subject  it  to  a  somewhat  rigorous 
analysis. 

Unable  to  explain  the  trinity  in  the  unity  of  the  Godhead, 
and  fearing  lest  the  doctrine  of  three  persons  in  one  God  might 
lead  to  the  admission  of  three  Gods,  each  inferior  to  the  next 
in  nature  or  power,  Sabellius  taught  that  Son  was  but  an- 
other name  for  the  Father;  the  Modalists  held  that  the  Father, 


1.  ATHENACGR.,  Leg.  pro  Christ.,  10. 

2.  Dial.,  ILVIII,  LVI,  LXI. 
3-  Or.  adv.  Gr.,  5. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  H9 

the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  were  but  transitory  modes  of  but 
one  and  the  same  substance  of  the  Godhead.  St.  Hippolytus 
and  Tertullian,  in  the  West;  Grig-en  and  St.  Denis  of  Alexan- 
dria, in  the  East,  protested  saying-  that  in  the  Godhead,  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  are  distinct  from  all 
eternity  by  their  relation  of  origin  and  that  they  possess  one 
and  same  substance.  The  Son  is  of  the  Father's  substance, 
says  Origen,  5jAoouaio? !.  He  had  coined  the  right  word.  And 
yet,  continues  the  illustrious  Alexandrian,  if  the  Son  possesses 
the  divine  substance,  He  must  possess  it  to  a  lesser  degree 
than  the  Father  :  it  is,  as  it  were,  attenuated,  or  diminished 
in  Him;  for  the  Son,  as  such,  must  be  inferior  to  his  Father, 
just  as  an  effect  is  inferior  to  its  cause2.  St.  Denis  of  Alexan- 
dria, for  his  somewhat  excessive  urging  the  doctrine  of  su- 
bordination has  to  send  explanations  to  St.  Denis  of  Rome . 
Thus  consubstantiality  proved  to  be  the  only  solution  of  the 
mystery  of  three  persons  in  one  God  :  in  part  defined,  in  part 
only  anticipated,  the  tendencies  towards  unitarianism  and 
tritheism  are  condemned  and  the  term  ojxooutjtoq  is  brought 
into  existence.  Nevertheless,  there  yet  remains  to  be  found  a 
last  doctrinal  precision  which,  so  far,  has  not  been  grasped ; 
but  towards  this  the  Holy  Ghost  is  directing  the  Christian 
thought. 

But  now  the  term  c^suaio?  takes  on  a  Sabellian  meaning. 
Christ  can  be  God  only,  says  Paul  of  Samosata,  on  the  con- 
dition that  He  form  but  one  and  the  same  person,  or 
substance,  with  God,  —  that  He  be  SjAoo-Jtris?  wifh  God.  This 


1.  The  Wisdom  that  proceeds  from  the  Father,  says  Origen,  «  is  begotten 
of  God's  substance  »,  for  «  she  is  an  emanation  from  the  glory  of  the  Almighty  » 
and  «  the  emanation  is  consubstantial  (6|ioov9ioc)    to  that  from  which  it  ema- 
nates ».    This  is  taken  from  a  fragment  of  his  Commentary  on  the  Epistle  to. 
the  Hebrews.    It  has  been  preserved  only  in  a  Latin  version  quoted  above,  p.  101. 

2.  Contra  Celsum,  1.  VI,  60.  —  Periarchon,  I.  I,  n,  13.  —  In  Joan.,  1.  II, 
15;  1.  XXXII,  18. 


120  GOD. 

doctrine,  along  with  the  term  sophistically  employed  by 
Paul  of  Samosata,  was  condemned  by  the  council  of  Antioch, 
in  267  or  268.  It  is  not  easy  to  sever  a  term  from  an  idea 
which  it  has  once  represented.  And  for  a  long  time  many 
of  the  Fathers  will  not  be  able  to  hear  the  word  6[/oouaio<;, 
without  suspecting  of  Sabellianism  those  who  use  it. 

Thus,  then,  from  the  second  century  to  the  end  of  the 
third,  there  was  unceasing  effort  to  reconcile  the  trinity  of 
persons  with  the  Divine  unity.  The  Father,  the  Son,  the 
Holy  Ghost  are,  owing  to  their  relation  of  origin,  distinct, 
from  all  eternity;  and  yet,  there  is  but  one  God.  The  unity 
between  the  Father  and  the  Son  comes  from  this  that  the 
Father  communicates  His  own  substance  to  the  Son.  The 
Son  possesses  the  Father's  substance;  but,  several  of  the 
Fathers  affirm,  since  it  is  communicated  to  Him  by  the 
Father,  it  cannot  be  that  the  Son  possesses  it  in  its  ful- 
ness. 

Arius  precipitated  the  issue  of  this  controversy  by  going 
far  beyond  the  tenets  of  Subordinationism  and  affirming 
categorically  that  the  preexistent  Christ  was  nothing  but 
the  first  creature  of  the  Father. 


The  Dogma  of  Consubstantiality  and  the  Council  of 
Nicsea.  —  The  first  part  of  the  creed  sums  up  the  conclusions 
of  the  first  attempts  made  to  explain  the  unity  in  the  trinity 
in  the  Godhead.  «  We  believe  »,  said  the  Fathers,  «  in  one 
Lord,  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  the  only  begotten  of  the 
Father,  God  of  God,  light  of  light,  true  God  of  true  God  ». 
This  doctrine  the  Fathers  put  forth  against  Arius,  whose 
doctrine  they  condemn.  Thus,  they  say,  the  Son  is  «  begotten 
and  not  made  ».  And  moreover,  they  add,  «  engendered 
by  the  Father  from  all  eternity  »,  He  is  «  consubstantial 
with  the  Father,  bpcovatos  TO>  ^atpi  »,  that  is,  He  is  of  the 
same  essence  or  substance  as  the  Father,  the  same  as  the 
Father  in  His  inmost  and  absolute  being.  The  difference 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  121 

between  them  lies  solely  in   the  relation  of  origin  which 
exists  eternally  between  the  Father  and  the  Son. 

Anti-Nicene  Reaction.  —  About  the  year  330,  the 
bishops  exiled  after  the  council  of  Nicaea  had  all  been 
recalled.  Little  by  little  they  organized  an  opposition  party 
to  fight  the  Nicene  definitions.  Prominent  among  them 
were  some  out  and  out  Arians,  but  especially  many  sub- 
ordinationists,  who  refused  to  admit  the  consubstantiality  of 
the  Son,  because,  they  held,  this  expression  was  clearly 
Sabellian.  The  two  leaders  were  Eusebius  of  Nicomedia 
and  Eusebius  of  Caesarea. 

Then  there  occurred  an  incident  which  set  the  whole 
party  agoing.  Marcellus,  bishop  of  Ancyra,  one  of  the 
defenders  of  the  CJAOOUUIOS  of  Nicaea,  had  just  published  a  book 
against  the  Arians.  The  Eusebians  thought  they  saw  in  it 
well  defined  Sabellianism.  They  at  once  assembled  in 
council  and  deposed  the  bishop  of  Ancyra  (335). 

The  reason  for  the  accusation  was  anything  but  clear, 
and  Athanasius,  who  had  been  made  bishop  of  Alexandria, 
thought  it  his  duty  to  defend  Marcellus.  The  bishop  of 
Ancyra  afterwards  came  to  Rome  where  he  explained  his 
doctrine  satisfactorily  and  was  declared  orthodox,  in  341. 

Meanwhile,  Constantine  died  in  337,  leaving  the  empire 
of  the  East  to  his  son,  Constantius,  a  prince  given  to  dogma- 
tizing and  devoted  to  the  Eusebians.  Sure  of  the  emperor's 
support,  they  united  again  in  council  and  condemned  Marcel- 
lianism.  These  were  the  first  skirmishes  before  the  battle. 

In  341  Eusebius  of  Nicomedia  passed  away.  He  was 
bishop  of  Constantinople  for  two  years;  and,  at  his  death, 
there  arose  violent  disturbances,  which  affected  Constantius 
very  much.  He  determined  to  have  an  understanding 
with  his  brother  Constans,  emperor  of  the  West,  and  with 
the  Pope,  with  a  view  to  convoking  a  council  to  reestablish 
religious  peace.  This  was  the  council  of  Sardica  (343). 

Rut  the  Anti-Nicenians,  led  by  Acacius  of  Caesarea  and 


122  GOD. 

Basil  of  Ancyra,  refused  to  come,  thus  defeating  the  purpose 
of  the  council.  Nevertheless,  in  3i6,  Athanasius,  now  an 
exile  since  336,  managed  to  return  to  Alexandria. 

In  350,  Constans,  the  emperor  of  the  West  died,  and  so 
Constantius  became  sole  emperor.  The  Anti-Nicenians, 
thinking  the  time  had  come  for  them  to  assert  themselves, 
met  in  the  council  of  Sirmium,  where  they  drew  up  a  rule 
of  subordinationist  faith  (351).  But  they  did  not  stop  at 
that.  They  succeeded,  by  various  means,  in  having  Atha- 
nasius again  exiled.  Hilary  of  Poitiers,  now  the  principal 
representative  of  the  doctrine  of  Athanasius  in  the  West,  was 
exiled  to  Phrygia. 

About  the  only  tie  that  held  the  Anti-Nicenians  together 
was  their  common  opposition  to  1he  defenders  of  the 
definitions  of  the  council  of  Nicaea.  And,  once  their  adver- 
saries seemed  to  have  been  ^completely  crushed ,  they  could 
no  longer  agree  and  broke  up  into  three  factions. 

The  first  of  these  factions  consisted  of  downright  Arians, 
under  the  leadership  of  Aetius,  Eunomius,  and  Eudoxius. 
They  held  that  the  Son  is  but  a  simple  creature  of  the 
Father,  and  that,  consequently,  he  is  of  different  substance 
from  the  Father.  The  Son,  said  they,  is  xrur^a  TCJ  Traipo?,  and 
therefore  k.%  i-ipxq  ouiia?  and  avo^oio? ;  hence  He  is  neither 
OJAOOUUIO?,  nor  op.otouato?,  nor  even  simply  ojxoicg.  These  were 
called  Anomoeans. 

The  second  group,  with  Basil  of  Ancyra  at  their  head, 
was  much  more  important  than  the  first.  They  maintained 
that  the  Son  could  not  be  of  the  same  substance  as  the 
Father,  cpioouaio;  but  that  He  was  of  a  like  substance, 
cy.oisuc'.o?.  These  were  the  Semi-Arians,  properly  so  called. 

A  third  party,  under  Acacius  of  Gaesarea,  said  that 
the  Son  was  like  the  Father,  but  that  it  was  not  necessary 
to  define  this  likeness  any  more  precisely  than  did  the  Scrip- 
tures. All  that  is  necessary  is  to  say  that  the  Son  is  like 
the  Father  according  to  the  Scriptures,  o^cic?  y.a-a  tag  ypa?a<;. 
These  were  called  Homoeans. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  123 

Now,  in  357,  a  few  Anomoean  bishops  met  at  Sirmium 
and  drew  up  a  formula  in  which  they  rejected  the  6[xcouato? 
and  the  o^.otouaio?.  The  Semi-Arians  protested,  and  got  up  a 
formula  in  which  they  affirmed  that  the  Word  is  not  a 
creature,  but  the  Son  of  the  Father  in  the  natural  sense; 
and  hencfe  the  resemblance  between  the  substance  of  the 
Father  and  that  of  the  Son,  so  that  they  said,  the  Son  is 
5[i.otcrj<Tio<;  with  the  Father.  On  the  other  hand,  they  rejected 
the  term  sjxoouaio?  as  being  Sabellian. 

But  they  went  even  further.  They  got  the  emperor 
Gonstantius  to  compel  Pope  Liberius,  then  an  exile  at  Berea 
for  having  defended  Athanasius,  to  sign  their  formula.  The 
Pope  gave  his  signature,  but  only  after  having  stipulated 
that  the  Son  is  like  the  Father  in  substance  and  in  everything, 
cy.ncc  y.aT*  ouji'av  xat  /.a-a  rcavTa. 

They  then  tried  to  win  over  all  the  bishops  of  the 
Catholic  world.  With  this  in  view,  they  asked  Constantius 
to  convoke  a  council.  But  meantime  the  Anomoeans, 
having  broken  with  the  Homoeans,  succeeded  in  winning 
the  confidence  of  Constanlius,  who  decided  he  would  call 
two  councils,  one  at  Rimini  for  the  West,  and  the  other  at 
Seleucia  for  the  East. 

At  Rimini,  a  Homoean  formula  was  submitted  to  the 
Fathers.  The  Son,  it  had,  engendered  from  all  eternity  by 
the  Father  is  like  the  Father,  according  to  the  Scriptures. 
On  their  refusal  to  approve  this  doctrine,  Constantius  resorted 
to  trickery  and  violence  and  got  them  to  subscribe  to  it. 
At  Seleucia,  he  had  recourse  to  the  same  tactics  and  secured 
the  same  result.  And  so,  at  both  places,  was  approved  the 
homoean  formula,  homoean  especially  in  appearance;  for, 
in  reality,  it  was  Arian.  Interpreting  this  twofold  victory, 
St.  Jerome  was  right  when  he  said  that  the  world  awoke 
to  find  itself  Arian.  Luckily  for  orthodoxy,  Constantius, 
the  author  of  this  unworthy  feat,  died  in  361  *. 

1.  See  the  expose*  of  this  long  controversy  in  A.  DE  BKOCLIK,  op.  cit.  Cons- 


124  GOD. 

With  the  death  of  Constantius  disappeared  the  strongest 
support  of  the  Arians.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Semi-Arians, 
incensed  at  the  conduct  of  their  adversaries,  became  more 
and  more  reconciled  to  the  definitions  of  the  Nicene  council. 
And  in  this,  they  were  assisted  by  the  enlightened  and 
conciliatory  intervention  of  Athanasius.  In  the  West, 
St.  Hilary  of  Poitiers  worked  for  the  same  end  and  with 
equally  good  results.  From  369-380,  four  councils  were 
held  at  Rome,  with  Pope  St.  Damasus  presiding,  and  in 
these  the  definitions  of  the  Nicene  council  were  renewed, 
whilst  an  article  on  the  divinity  and  consubstantiality  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  was  added  to  the  creed.  In  362  at  a  council 
held  under  Athanasius,  at  Alexandria,  a  large  number 
of  Semi-Arians  recognized  the  council  of  Nicasa,  condemned 
Arianism  and  all  who  held  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  only  a 
creature  of  the  Son.  At  Antioch,  in  363,  the  patriarch 
Meletius  with  27  bishops,  among  them  Acacius  of  Caesarea, 
accepted  the  c^oouato?  of  Nicasa,  contenting  themselves  with 
the  observation  that  this  word  seemed  to  them  to  mean  the 
same  as  the  word  o^oiouatog.  St.  Athanasius,  before  his 
death  in  373,  thus  witnessed  the  triumph  of  Nicene  ortho- 
doxy. 

Arguments  of  the  Anomoeans.  —  The  Anomoeans,  or 
Arians,  tried  to  bolster  up  their  claims  with  the  authority 
of  the  Scriptures.  They  quoted  from  the  Old  Testament  that 
text  from  Proverbs,  where  Wisdom,  in  speaking  of  itself, 
says  :  «  The  Lord  has  created  me  (r/.Tics)  to  be  the  beginning 
of  His  ways1  ».  In  the  New  Testament  they  exploited  this 
passage  from  St.  Mark  :  «  But  of  that  day  or  hour  no  man 
knoweth,  neither  the  angels  in  heaven  nor  the  Son,  but  the 


lance  et  Julien,   t.  1,  ch.  HI.  —  L.  DCCHESNE,  Histoire  ancienne  de   I'Egllse. 
t.  II,  ch.  v-vm,  x-xi.  —  J.  TIIERONT,  History  of  Dogmas,  v.  II,  ch.  H  et  in. 
1.  Prov.  THI,  22. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  125 

Father1  ,  and  this  one  from  St.  Luke  :  «  And  Jesus 
advanced  in  wisdom  and  age,  and  grace  with  God  and 
men2  ».  From  St.  John  they  gleaned  all  the  texts  bearing 
upon  the  dependence  of  the  Son  on  the  Father.  There  was 
this  text  :  «  The  Son  cannot  do  anything  of  himself  3  »  ;  and 
this  one  :  «  The  Father  is  greater  than  I4  »;  and  finally 
this  :  «  Now  this  is  eternal  life  :  that  they  may  know  thee, 
the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ,  whom  thou  hast  sent 5  ». 

Though  they  had  but  little  respect  for  the  Fathers,  — 
who  raiher  contradicted  them,  —  the  Anomoeans  liked  to 
fall  back  upon  the  doctrine  of  Origen  and  Denis  of  Alexandria. 

But  they  chose  to  argue  from  reason  rather  than  to 
quote  authorities.  An  engendered  being,  they  contended, 
cannot  be  the  cause  of  its  own  existence  ;  it  must  necessarily 
depend  upon  the  unbegotten  one.  But  are  there  in  God  one 
or  two  unbegotten  beings?  If  two,  there  must  be  two  prin- 
ciples totally  distinct  and  separate ;  and  this  is  practically  to 
admit  of  two  Gods.  If  there  be  only  one  such  being,  the 
Son  can  be  but  the  creature  of  God. 

St.  Athanasius'  Reply.  —  About  all  the  texts  in  Holy  Writ, 
which  seem  to  indicate  any  inferiority  of  the  Son  to  the  Father, 
said  St.  Athanasius,  refer  not  to  the  Son,  but  to  the  humanity 
which  He  took  the  day  of  His  Incarnation.  Thus,  «  it  was  as 
man  that  the  Savior  said  :  «  The  Lord  created  me  ».  He 
wanted  to  express  the  following  thought :  My  Father  made  me 
a  body,  He  created  me  for  the  salvation  of  men.  In  this 
passage,  the  word  SXTWS  applies  not  to  the  Word,  but  to  the 
created  body  with  which  the  Word  was  clothed0.  So,  too,  he 


1.  MARK,  xm,  32. 

2.  LUKE,  u,  52. 

3.  JN.,  T,  19. 

4.  Ibid.,  xiv,  28. 
6.  Ibid.,  XVH,  3. 

6.  Contra  arianos,or.  If,  47;  P.  C.,  XXVI,  258. 


120  GOD. 

reasons  on  the  text  from  St.  Mark  :  «  Everyone  knows  that 
the  Savior  spoke  in  this  way  on  account  of  the  flesh,  as  man. 
In  fact,  such  an  imperfection  could  not  belong-  to  the  Word, 
but  must  belong  to  human  nature,  of  which  ignorance  is  a 
feature1  ».  Evidently,  the  text  from  St.  Luke  must  be  inter- 
preted of  the  human  nature.  As  for  the  passages  from 
St.  John,  there  is  only  one  that  presents  any  difficulty,  and 
that  is  the  one  that  has  the  following-  declaration  of  the  Savior : 
«  The  Father  who  sent  me  is  greater  than  I  ».  But,  says 
St.  Athanasius,  this  text  proclaims  a  certain  superiority  of 
the  Father  over  the  Son,  but  it  only  refers  to  the  relation 
of  paternity  and  filiation  which  unites  the  Father  and  the  Son ; 
and  there  is  nothing  in  it  derogatory  to  the  perfect  equality 
of  the  Father  and  the  Son,  or  to  the  consubstantiality  of  the 
divine  persons-. 

After  explaining-  the  sense  of  the  Scriptures,  St.  Athana- 
sius points  to  the  fact  that  the  Arians  have  no  right  to  appeal 
to  the  authority  of  Origen  and  Denis  of  Alexandria.  There  is 
no  doubt,  he  says,  that  we  occasionally  run  across  strang-e 
passages  in  their  writings ;  but  if  we  take  care  to  interpret 
these  in  the  light  of  context  and  circumstances,  we  see  that 
their  doctrine  is  perfectly  orthodox3.  Speaking  of  St.  Denis, 
he  addresses  this  reproach  to  the  Arians  :  «  Since  these 
fomentors  of  impiety  pretend  that  St.  Denis  is  with  them,  let 
them  write  and  let  them  confess  what  lie  himself  wrote,  let 
them  proclaim  what  he  has  taught  on  consubstantiality,  on 
the  eternity  of  the  Son,  let  them  use  his  comparisons4.  » 

In  their  discussions,  the  Arians,  as  we  have  said,  had 
recourse  to  dialectics  rather  than  to  authority.  St.  Athana- 
sius does  not  hesitate  to  attack  them  on  their  own  ground. 

The  whole  reasoning  of  the  Arians  rested  upon  equivo- 


1.  Ibid.,  or.  Ill,  43. 
1.  Ibid.,  or.  I,  58. 

3.  De  decretis,  27;  P.  G.,  XXV,  465. 

4.  De  sententia  Dionysii,  24. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  127 

cation  brought  about  by  the  word  ays'wYjtcv.  In  fact  this  word 
is  capable  of  being  understood  in  two  ways ;  either  it  means 
«  that  which  was  not  made,  that  which  was  not  created, 
that  which  is  eternal  »,  and,  in  this  sense,  it  is  applicable 
both  to  the  Father  and  to  the  Son ;  or  it  means  «  that  which 
was  not  begotten  »,  and,  in  this  sense,  is  applicable  only  to 
the  Father.  Unless  we  make  this  distinction,  we  fall  into 
error.  «  The  Arians  are  wrong,  then,  when  they  look  to 
their  dilemma  for  victory.  Is  there  but  one  aYevvYjTOig,  or  are 
there  two  ?  »  If  they  define  a-^vvirjTov  «  that  which  is  not  made 
or  created,  that  which  is  eternal  »,  let  them  understand  that, 
not  only  once,  but  a  thousand  times,  according  to  this  mean- 
ing, the  Son  also  is  ayevvrjTo?;  for  He  is  not  of  the  Yevvrj-rtov; 
He  is  not  made  ;  He  is  coexistent  with  the  Father  from  all 

eternity If,  therefore,  when  vanquished  on  this  side, 

they  wish  to  give  the  word  the  meaning  of  one  «  not  come 
from  any  one,  having  no  Father  »,  we  will  inform  them  that, 
according  to  this  sense,  there  is  but  one  a^i^r^oq,  and  that 
is  the  Father.  But  they  will  gain  nothing  thereby;  for  to 
say  that  the  Father  is  aYsvvrjTcg,  in  this  sense,  does  not  make 
it  that  the  Son  is  -/ewrjio?,  in  the  sense  of  being  made  or 
created,  since  it  has  been  shown  that  He  is  the  Word  and  like 
the  one  that  engendered  Him.  If,  then,  God  is  aYsvvrjTc?,  His 
image,  that  is,  His  Word,  is  not  ysvvyjTo;,  that  is,  made,  or 
created,  but  yew^a1  (that  is,  he  that  is  engendered,  the 
offspring) . 

The  Arguments  of  the  Semi-Arians.  —  The  Semi-Arians 
rejected  the  term  6jj.oou<rio?  for  two  reasons,  one  philosophical, 
the  other  scriptural. 

Since  the  Son  is  Son,  He  must  possess  the  substance  of 
the  Father.  All  generation,  in  fact,  supposes  a  communi- 
cation of  the  substance  of  the  father. 

But  the  Son  must  have  numerically  the  same  identical 

1.  Contra  arianos,  or.  I,  31 ;  P.  G.,  XXVI,  76. 


128  GOD. 

substance  as  the  Father.  To  admit  the  contrary  would  be  to 
admit  two  substances  in  God,  and  consequently  two  Gods. 

Yet,  since  the  Son  is  simply  the  Son,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  he  must  have  the  same  divine  substance,  but  less  fully 
than  the  Father  has  it;  for  the  etlect  is  always  inferior  to  the 
cause. 

Now,  went  on  the  Semi-Arians,the  term  o^oo^oq,  which 
affirms  absolute  identity  between  the  substance  of  the  Father 
and  the  substance  of  the  Son,  is  equivalent  to  saying-  that  the 
Son  is  in  reality  not  the  Son,  that  He  is  but  a  transient  mode 
of  the  divine  substance.  In  other  words,  the  term  cy.oouaios 
has  nothing  but  a  Sabellian  signification. 

The  term  cixsiojuiog,  on  the  other  hand,  indicates  only 
the  likeness  which  the  Son  has  in  virtue  of  His  genera- 
tion, and  does  not  deny  the  reality  of  the  three  Divine  Per  - 
sons. 

Then,  too,  the  word  oiAoiouaicc,  meaning,  as  it  does,  but 
the  likeness  which  results  from  eternal  generation,  may  be 
taken  as  equivalent  to  the  scriptural  term  Son.  As  for  the 
word  cjjLocumog,  it  is  a  new  expression  signifying  a  novel  and 
unscriptural  idea1. 

St.  Athanasius'  Reply.  —  It  is  quite  evident  that  the 
arguments  of  the  Semi-Arians  differed  entirely  from  those  of 
the  Arians.  According  to  the  Arians,  the  Son  was  of  a  sub- 
stance numerically  distinct  from  that  of  the  Father  and  was 
created  by  the  Father;  while  according  to  the  Semi-Arians, 
the  substance  of  the  Son  was  numerically  the  same  as  that  of 
the  Father,  but  the  Son,  as  such,  possesses  it  in  a  lesser 
degree.  Yet  Semi-Arianism  was  hardly  conceivable  to  a 


1.  We  mention  here  only  the  Semi-Arians  of  the  type  of  Eusebius  of  Caesarea 
or  of  Basil  of  Ancyra.  These  were  but  rehearsing  the  subordination  ideas  of 
Origen  or  Denis  of  Aleiandria.  Some  there  were  also,  who,  coining  nearer  to 
Arianism,  taught  that  the  generation  of  the  Son  consisted  in  the  communication 
of  part  of  the  Father's  substance. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  129 

mind  that  tried  to  get  a  clear  representation  of  how  one 
could  possess  in  a  lesser  degree  the  divine  substance.  If  the 
Father  engenders  a  Son,  this  can  take  place  only  by  the 
communication  of  the  whole  divine  substance.  Conse- 
quently, the  whole  substance  will  belong  to  the  Son  as  well 
as  to  the  Father;  in  other  words,  the  Son  will  be  ojjLooua'.o? 
with  the  Father. 

It  was  to  demonstrate  this  truth  that  St.  Athanasius 
directed  his  efforts1. 

The  objection  was  urged  that,  as  long  as  we  admit  that 
the  Son  is  only  the  Son,  we  must  conceive  of  Him  as  an  effect 
of  the  Father.  And,  it  was  added,  the  effect  is  necessarily 
inferior  to  the  cause. 

Between  the  Father  and  the  Son,  answered  St.  Atha- 
nasius, there  does  not  exist  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect 
which  is  found  among  men  between  a  father  and  his  son. 
In  God,  the  Father  is  the  root  and  the  Son  is  the  stem  springing 
from  this  root.  And  as  the  fountain-head  is  not  the  efficient 
cause  of  the  stream,  nor  the  root  the  efficient  cause  of  the 
stem,  but  only  the  starting  point,  the  origin,  the  mere  prin- 
ciple; so,  in  God,  the  Father  is  not  the  efficient  cause  of  the 
Son,  but  only  the  starting  point,  the  origin,  the  mere  prin- 
ciple2. The  words  «  source  »  and  «  root  »  are  well  chosen; 
they  produce  the  idea  of  extension  by  communication  of 
substance  rather  than  production  by  way  of  efficient  causality. 

Let  no  one  raise  the  objection,  continues  St.  Athanasius, 
that  the  homoousia  of  the  Father  and  the  Son  is  not  indicated 
in  the  Scriptures!  Does  not  St.  John  recall  this  saying  of  the 
Savior's  :  «  The  Father  and  I  are  one3  »?  and  this  other  : 
«  I  am  in  the  Father  and  the  Father  in  me*  »?  He  teaches 
here  the  identity  of  substance  in  the  Father  and  the  Son5. 


1.  De  synodis,  4,  53. 

2.  Contra  Arianos,  or.  I,  19. 

3.  JN.,  x,  30. 

4.  Ibid.,  xiv,  10. 

5.  Contra  Arianos,  oratio  III,  3. 

T.   I. 


13C  GOD. 

Such  reasoning  had  some  effect  upon  the  Semi-Arians ; 
but  what  went  further  in  bringing  them  to  orthodoxy  was 
the  exaggeration  of  several  members  of  their  party,  who 
plunged  headlong  into  pure  Arianism.  Perhaps,  too,  the 
dishonest  conduct  of  the  Arians  themselves  had  even  more 
influence  than  this  upon  them.  Gradually  they  came  to 
acknowledge  that  the  Son,  who  wras  like  the  Father  by  virtue 
of  His  eternal  generation,  possesses  also  the  same  substance 
as  the  Father,  and  as  perfectly  as  the  Father.  And  this  was 
admitting  all  that  the  Nicene  G^CO-JUISC  meant.  Nevertheless, 
they  still  held  out  against  accepting  that  term  and  chose 
instead  the  term  o^cio-Jutc;. 

There  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  this  had  now  come 
to  be  merely  a  quarrel  about  words.  St.  Athanasius  under- 
stood this  so  clearly  that,  at  the  council  of  Alexandria  in  362, 
he  allowed  the  c^cwujic?  to  stand,  provided  that  by  this  term 
was  understood  that  the  Son  had  the  very  substance  of  the 
Father  and  that  the  Father  had  it  equally  with  the  Son1. 

Conclusion  on  the  mode  of  Development  of  this  Dogma. 
—  A  concept  is  said  to  be  clear  wrhen  it  merely  enables  us  to 
distinguish  one  thing  from  another.  If  this  concept  is 
subjected  to  such  further  analysis,  that  we  can  distinguish 
the  characteristics  of  the  first  thing  from  those  of  the  second, 
it  is  said  to  be  a  distinct  concept.  And  it  is  more  or  less 
distinct  according  to  the  extent  in  which  we  are  enabled  to 
distinguish  more  or  less  completely  these  characteristics. 

1.  «  Some  historians  have  suggested  that,  after  using  it  first  in  the  strict 
meaning  of  the  numerical  unity  of  the  substance  of  the  Father  and  the  Son,  the 
Bishop  of  Alexandria  had,  from  about  the  year  359  till  the  end  of  his  life,  given 
up  this  rigid  view  and  almost  identified  unconsciously  the  meaning  of  the  word 
6(xoou<rto;  with  that  of  the  word  ojxoioiaio;.  This  is  a  mistake.  It  is  true  that  in 
the  De  Synodis,  a  conciliatory  document  which  was  composed  during  the  year 
359,  St.  Athanasius  makes  advances  to  the  Semi-Arians  :  he  shows  them  that 
their  principles,  if  constantly  followed,  must  lead  them  to  admit  what  is  implied 
in  «  con  substantial ;  »  he  also  declares  that  the  Orthodox  will  pay  more  attention 
to  the  substance  of  their  doctrine  than  to  their  formulas;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  yields  none  of  the  points  defined  by  the  Council  of  Nicaea,  nothing  of 
what  is  the  whole  truth.  »  (J.  TIXBRONT,  History  of  Dogmas,  Vol.  II,  ch.  Ill,  p.  71.) 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  131 

Now,  we  may  say  that  faith  in  the  mystery  of  the  most 
holy  Trinity  in  general,  and  in  consubstantiality  in  particular, 
was  first  expressed  by  a  clear  concept.  This  concept,  through 
theological  reflection  and  under  the  guidance  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  became  more  and  more  distinct.  Several  Apologists 
and  some  of  the  Fathers  of  the  third  century  gave  it  inexact 
expression ;  but  this  was  inevitable.  It  was  due  to  the  strug- 
gles of  the  mind  seeking  expression  for  its  thoughts.  After 
the  Nicene  council  such  affirmations  would  have  been  con- 
sidered rightly  as  heretical. 

A  good  idea  of  the  work  of  this  period  may  be  obtained 
from  a  happy  simile  from  the  pen  of  Mgr  Duchesne  :  «  There 
are  two  conditions  required  so  that  damage  done  to  the 
hold  of  a  ship  will  cause  it  to  leak  :  first,  the  injury  must  be 
sustained  in  the  hold  below  the  water  line,  and  then,  be  so 
great  as  to  allow  the  water  to  find  its  way  in  great  quantities 
into  the  vessel.  Now,  the  ship  may  set  sail  under  ballast,  at 
the  outset  of  a  long  voyage,  and  take  on  little  by  little  its 
merchandise.  The  water-line  rises  all  along  its  hull;  or,  in 
other  words,  the  ship  draws  more  water;  and  a  break  which 
at  first  cleared  the  hold  will  now  be  plunged  beneath  the 
water  as  the  level  is  raised.  The  ship  will  then  be  in  danger 
from  an  accident  which  at  the  beginning  of  the  voyage  was 
of  no  consequence.  Just  so  is  it  with  the  teaching  of  the 
Church  on  the  mystery  of  the  blessed  Trinity.  During  its 
long  voyage  the  vessel  of  Tradition  gradually  drew  more  and 
more  water  in  its  ocean ;  the  surface  immersed  has  become 
more  extensive  than  it  was  at  first,  though  it  remains  the 
same  ship,  the  same  doctrinal  cargo.  So,  little  breaks, 
which  in  the  second  and  third  century  could  be  sustained 
without  any  danger,  because  above  the  water  line,  had  now 
to  be  looked  after,  at  the  risk  of  imperilling  everything,  be- 
cause they  came  under  water  *.  » 


1.  Let  temoins  anteniceens  du  dogme  de  la  Trinite,  in  Revue  des  sciences 
cccletiastiques ,  Dec.  1882. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  DIVINE  PROCESSIONS 

The  three  persons  are  one  and  the  same  God  because  they 
have  one  and  the  same  substance  :  this  is  a  summary  state- 
ment of  the  propositions  we  have  just  examined. 

This  truth  is  a  mere  statement  of  the  mystery  of  the  divine 
life. 

We  shall  now  enter  more  deeply  into  the  mystery  of  this 
life. 

The  Catholic  doctrine  on  this  point  is  summed  up  in  the 
second  part  of  the  formula  which  we  gave  at  the  beginning  of 
these  studies.  The  Father,  we  said,  engendered  a  Son  from 
all  eternity;  so  too,  from  all  eternity,  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeds 
from  the  Father  and  the  Son  as  from  one  principle. 

The  subject  of  this  chapter,  then,  naturally  gives  rise  to 
two  new  propositions,  of  which  we  will  treat  in  as  many 
articles. 

ARTICLE  I 

The  Son  proceeds  from  the  Father  from  all  eternity 
by  way  of  Generation. 

Doctrine  of  the  Church.  —  In  stating  this  proposition  : 
«  The  Son  proceeds  from  the  Father  »,  we  consider  the  Son 
both  before  and  after  the  Incarnation.  The  reason  for  taking 
this  point  of  view  was  given  when  we  proved  the  divinity 
of  the  Son. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  i33 

Procession  is  the  emanating  of  one  thing"  from  another  : 
Processioest  emanatio  unius  ab  altero.  The  starting  point  is 
called  the  principle ;  opposed  to  the  principle  is  the  term ;  the 
procession  consists  essentially  in  the  action.  If  the  procession 
terminates  outside  the  substance  of  the  principle,  the  pro- 
cession is  transitive ;  if  it  terminates  in  a  term  which  belongs 
essentially  to  the  same  substance  as  the  principle,  the  pro- 
cession is  said  to  be  immanent.  Now  we  say  that  the  Son 
proceeds  from  the  Father  by  immanent  procession.  And  we 
add  that  He  proceeds  from  the  Father  by  way  of  generation. 

In  the  order  of  created  beings,  generation  is  defined  : 
Productio  viventis  a  vivente  conjuncto,  ad  efformandum  na- 
turam  sped/ice  similem ,  viproductionis.  The  definition  states 
that  generation  takes  place  when  from  a  living  conjugate 
principle  there  results  a  specifically  similar  being.  In  God, 
the  Son  proceeds  from  the  Father  by  way  of  generation, 
that  is,  in  a  manner  resembling  somewhat  the  generation 
of  created  beings,  but  yet  quite  different,  since  all  our 
concepts  of  things  created  can  be  applied  to  God  by  way  of 
analogy  only. 

But,  it  will  be  asked,  in  what  does  the  eternal  generation 
of  the  Son  consist? 

In  this  :  1st.  The  Son  is  begotten  of  the  Father  in  such  a 
way  as  to  entail  no  inferiority  of  the  Son  in  substance  or  in 
power,  nor  even  to  render  the  Son  posterior  in  actual 
existence.  Nor  can  we  say  that  the  Father  is  the  cause  and 
the  Son  the  "effect.  But  we  can  and  should  say  that  the 
Father  is  the  starting  point,  the  origin,  the  principle  of  the 
Son.  This  phraseology  indicates  not  efficient  causality,  but 
extension  by  the  communication  of  substance. 

2dl7.  The  Son  is  begotten  of  the  Father  not  by  a  transient 
act,  but  by  a  lasting  generation  which  continues  through  all 
eternity. 

$*i.  This  generation  constitutes  the  person  of  the  Father 
as  well  as  that  of  the  Son,  so  that  the  Father  is  nothing  but 
He  who  begets  the  Son  from  all  eternity  and  the  Son  nothing 


134  GOD. 

but  Ho  who  is  begotten  of  the  Father  from  all  eternity. 
Let  this  generation  cease  for  a  moment,  were  it  possible, 
and  that  would  be  the  end  of  the  Father  and  the  Son  and  of 
the  divine  life  itself. 

To  sum  up,  the  generation  of  the  Son  is  that  eternal  act 
by  which  the  Father  communicates  to  the  Son  all  the  sub- 
stance He  possesses.  As  a  result  of  this  communication  the 
Son  is  in  every  way  like  the  Father,  just  as  in  the  created 
order  the  son  is  of  the  same  species  as  those  who  generate 
him;  and  this  generation  can  and  must  be  called  eternal 
generation1. 

Defined  for  the  first  time  by  the  council  of  Nica^a2,  the 
dogma  of  the  eternal  generation  of  the  Son  is  contained  also 
in  the  creed  of  Constantinople3  and  in  that  of  St.  Athanasius4. 

We  shall  look  for  the  foundation  of  this  dogma  in  the 
New  Testament  and  in  the  Tradition  of  the  Fathers.  Then 
we  shall  give  its  explanation  as  essayed  by  St.  Thomas. 


THE   NEW   TESTAMENT. 

The  Synoptic  Gospels.  —  In  the  synoptic  Gospels  the 
revelation  of  the  eternal  generation  of  the  Son  is  correlative 
with  the  revelation  of  His  divine  filiation,  true  or  natural. 
Now,  as  we  have  established  above5,  if  we  wish  to  adhere  to 
the  testimony  of  the  synoptic  Gospels  alone,  we  must  admit 
that  Jesus  represented  Himself  as  the  true  Son  of  God. 

St.  John's  Gospel.  —  St.  John's  Gospel  is  more  explicit. 
From  the  prologue,  the  Word  is  represented  as  living  in  the 


1.  Cf.  BOSSUET,  2*  Seraaine,  lrt  Elevation. 

2.  DENZ.,  54. 

3.  Ibid.,  86. 

4.  Ibid.,  39. 

5.  Cf.  svpra,  pp.  72-8?. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  135 

most  active  and  intimate  relations  with  God ' .  But  the  Apostle 
does  not  merely  affirm  this.  To  him  was  granted  a  glimpse 
of  the  relation  between  the  Word  and  God,  and  this  he  has 
described.  We  have  seen,  he  tells  us,  (he  glory  of  the  Word 
Incarnate.  This  glory  He  possessed  as  His  own,  just  as  an 
only  begotten  Son  possesses  the  glory  of  his  Father2.  In  fact, 
he  adds,  He  is  the  only  Son,  the  only  begotten  Son,  that  is,  He 
who  possesses  by  way  of  eternal  generation  the  fulness  of 
the  divinity3.  And,  throughout  his  Gospel,  every  time  he 
speaks  of  Son,  he  understands  the  Son  begotten  of  the  Father 
from  all  eternity. 

St.  Paul's  Epistles.  —  In  his  different  epistles,  St.  Paul 
makes  use  of  language  almost  as  elevated  as  that  of  St.  John. 
Christ,  he  states,  existed  before  he  appeared  in  the  flesh,  as 
the  beginning  and  the  end  of  all  creation,  and  of  all  sanctifi- 
cation,  rich,  and  in  the  condition  of  God,  the  Son  of  God4. 
And  let  us  observe  here  that  there  can  be  question  of  none  but 
substantial  relation;  for,  speaking  of  the  Son  of  God,  the 
Apostle  calls  Him  the  Image  of  God"',  the  Wisdom  of  God6, 
God7,  the  true  Son  of  God8. 

But  nowhere  in  all  the  New  Testament  is  the  doctrine 
of  the  eternal  generation  of  the  preexistent  Christ  so  fully 
developed  as  in  the  prologue  of  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 
If  the  Son  is  above  the  Prophets,  above  the  angels,  and  above 
Moses,  it  is  because  He  is  the  Son  engendered  by  the  Father 
from  all  eternity9.  And  here  there  is  no  question  as  to  the 


1.  JN.,  i,  i. 

2.  Ibid.,  i,  14. 

3.  Ibid.,  i,  18. 

4.  Gal.,  i,  16;  II,  20;  nr,  4;    —  /  Thess.,  I,  10;  —  /  Cor.,  I,  19;  xv,  28;  - 
//  Cor.,  i,  19;  li,  31;  —  Rom.,  I,  3,  4,  9;  v,  10;  vn,  3,  29,  32;  —  Eph.,  iv,  13; 

-  Col.,  i,  13. 

5.  //  Cor.,  iv,  4;  —  Col.,  I,  15. 

6.  /  Cor.,  i,  30. 

7.  Rom.,  ix,  1-2;  —  Jit.,  i,  3. 

8.  Rom.,  VIH,  32. 

9.  Hebr.,  i,  5. 


136  GOD. 

meaning  of  the  word  Son  :  it  means  Son  by  nature,  the  only 
begotten,  as  it  does  in  the  prologue  of  St.  John's  Gospel.  In 
fact,  this  Son  through  whom  God  spoke  to  us  and  whom  He 
declared  Lord  of  all  things  by  raising  Him  up  in  the  flesh,  is  He 
through  whom  He  made  the  world1.  The  brightness  of  His 
glory,  the  figure  of  His  substance,  and  upholding  all  things 
by  the  word  of  His  power,  after  having  accomplished  the  pur- 
gation of  sins,  He  sitteth  on  the  right  hand  of  the  majesty 
on  high2.  These  two  last  phrases  sum  up,  in  an  inverted 
parallelism,  the  entire  work  and  the  dignity  of  the  only  Son 
of  the  Father. 


THE    TRADITION    OF   THE    FATHERS. 

General  Idea.  —  In  the  teaching  of  the  Fathers,  the 
doctrine  of  the  eternal  generation  of  the  Son  is  frequently 
interwoven  with  the  dogma  of  His  divinity.  The  Son  is  God 
because  God  the  Father,  in  begetting  Him,  communicated  to 
Him  His  divine  substance.  Hence,  it  is  not  expedient  to  draw 
the  line  too  sharply  between  two  dogmas  so  closely  related. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  well,  in  the  mystery  of  the  divinity  of 
the  Son,  to  examine  more  closely  His  eternal  generation. 

In  speaking  of  the  Savior,  the  epistle  of  Barnabas  affirms 
that  He  is  not  only  the  Son  of  man,  but  that  He  is  the  Son 
of  God,  since  He  is  the  image  of  God3,  made  accessible  to 
men  through  the  Incarnation4.  This  is  only  a  comment 
upon  the  doctrine  of  St.  Paul. 

St.  Ignatius  of  Antioch  reproduces  rather  the  doctrine 
of  St.  John,  especially  in  the  passage,  quoted  above,  of  the 


1.  Ibid.,  i,  1-2. 

2.  Ibid.,  i,  3-4, 

3.  BARN.,  xii,  10. 

4.  Ibid.,  v,  10-12. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  137 

epistle  to  the  Magnesians  where  he  says  :  «  There  is  but 
one  God  who  manifested  Himself  through  Jesus  Christ,  His 
Son,  who  is  also  His  Word,  given  forth  after  silence,  and 
pleasing  in  all  things  to  Him  that  sent  Him.  »* 

The  Apologist  Fathers.  —  St.  Justin  laid  much  stress 
upon  the  doctrine  of  the  generation  of  the  Son.  For  this 
illustrious  apologist,  just  as  for  us,  the  generation  of  the 
Son  is  the  foundation  of  His  absolute  divinity.  Addressing 
Trypho,  he  says  :  "  If  you  understood  what  was  said  by 
the  prophets  (about  the  Messias),  you  would  not  deny  that 
He  is  God,  the  only  begotten  Son,  and  the  ineffable  God2  ". 

Tatian,  the  disciple  of  St.  Justin,  enters  more  deeply 
into  the  mystery  of  the  generation  of  the  Son  :  «  Just  as  one 
torch,  »  he  says,  «  may  serve  the  purpose  of  lighting  many 
fires  without  its  light  being  diminished  because  other  tor- 
ches have  been  lighted  from  it,  so  the  Logos,  issuing  from 
the  power  of  the  Father,  does  not  deprive  of  Logos  Him 
who  engendered  it3.  »  Hence,  according  to  Tatian,  the 
generation  of  the  Logos  is  like  the  light  communicated  from 
one  torch  to  another ;  the  Word  is  the  light  of  light,  lu- 
men de  lumine,  <pug  rx,  <pon6s.  These  expressions,  as  we 
know,  found  their  way  into  the  creeds  of  Nicaea  and  Cons- 
tantinople. 

St.  Theophilus  of  Antioch  is  no  less  positive  in  his  affirm- 
ations on  this  subject  than  the  other  Apologists.  But  he 
insists  rather  upon  a  somewhat  special  feature  of  the  doc- 
trine, and  he  would  have  it  that  there  were  in  the  Logos 
two  states.  God,  wrote  he'*,  possesses  within  Himself,  from 
all  eternity,  a  Logos  (Xoyo?  evSiaOsio;),  which  he  utters  at 
the  moment  of  Creation  (Xoyoi;  rcpcxpoptxoc).  Does  he  mean  by 


1.  Ad  Afagn.,  vm,  2. 

2.  Dial.,  CXXTI. 

3.  Or.  adv.  Gr.,  5. 

•'i.  Ail  Autolyc.  1.  ii,  22. 


138  GOD. 

this  that  God  did  not  beget  His  Son  until  the  Creation  and 
that,  before  this,  the  Son  existed  only  in  a  potential  state 
and  more  or  less  really  distinct  from  God,  the  Father? 
Some  Catholic  writers  think  that  this  is  the  teaching  of 
St.  Theophilus  of  Antioch;  and  they  add  that  this  Father's 
doctrine  is  the  same  as  that  exposed,  though  in  less  expli- 
cit terms,  by  St.  Justin1,  Tatian2,  and  Athenagoras3.  Such 
an  interpretation,  it  seems  to  us,  need  not  be  put  upon 
these  texts.  It  would  seem  to  us,  on  the  contrary,  that  this 
Interior  Logos,  as  wrell  as  the  External  Logos,  indicates  a 
personal  subject,  engendered  eternally  by  the  Father. 
Yet,  one  cannot  well  fail  to  acknowledge  that  these  expres- 
sions, the  Immanent  Logos  and  the  Emitted  Logos,  are 
equivocal  and  of  such  a  nature  as  to  lead  into  error  one 
who  is  not  forewarned.  These  are  terms  which  it  would 
be  difficult  indeed  to  understand  in  the  orthodox  sense,  had 
they  been  used  after  the  Nicene  council. 

Origen.  —  Perhaps  no  author  has  developed  more  fully 
than  Origen  has,  the  doctrine  of  the  eternal  generation  of 
the  Word.  «  The  generation  of  the  Word  »,  writes  he, 
«  does  not  entail  the  division  of  substance  in  the  Father. 
The  generation  of  the  Son  from  the  Father,  the  invisible 
image  of  an  invisible  nature,  we  must  conceive  rather  as  the 
will  proceeding  from  the  intelligence  without  division  or  se- 
paration from  it4.  »  The  generation  of  the  Son  is  brought 
about  by  the  communication  of  the  entire  substance  of  the  Fa- 
ther. «  He  that  saves  is  one,  salvation  is  one.  The  living- 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  are  one;  one  not  by  a 
mixture  of  the  three,  but  by  the  identity  of  the  substance  in 
the  three  perfect,  correlative  hypostases.  The  Father  engen- 


1.  Apol.,  n,  6.  Dial.,  LXI,  1. 

2.  Or.  adv.  Gr.,  5. 

3.  Suppl.,  10. 

4.  Periarcfion,  1.  I,  c.  n,  6  ;  I.  IV,  28;  P.  G.,  XI,  135,  402. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  139 

dered  according-  to  nature  :  hence  the  begotten  one  is  con- 
suhstantial  with  Him1.  «  The  Son  is  generated  from  eter- 
nity. »  No  more  can  we  conceive  without  the  Father,  the 
Son,  the  impress  of  His  substance,  His  Word  and  His  Wisdom, 
than  the  light  can  exist  withoutits  rays.  How  dare  we,  then, 
claim  that  there  was  a  time  when  the  Son  did  not  exist?  As 
well  might  we  say  that  there  was  a  time  when  truth  was  not, 
when  Wisdom  was  not,  when  life  was  not.  These  perfec- 
tions pertain  to  the  essence  of  God  and  are  inseparable  from 
his  substance;  and,  if  reason  can  distinguish  them,  they 
are,  in  truth,  but  one  and  the  same  thing  in  which  consists 
the  fulness  of  the  divinity.  Even  these  expressions  :  «  There 
never  was  a  time  when  He  was  not  ;>,  must  be  understood 
leniently.  In  fact,  «  when  »  and  «  never  »  indicate  time , 
and  everything  that  concerns  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the 
Holy  Ghost  is  above  all  time,  is  everlasting  and  eternal. 
This  is  the  privilege  of  the  Trinity  alone ;  everything  else  is 
measured  by  time  and  duration2  ».  iMoreover,  this  gener- 
ation is  everlasting  :  «  Having  engendered  a  Son,  God  did 
not  cease  engendering  Him  after  birth,  but  He  engenders 
Him  forever...  What  is  the  Savior?  The  effulgence  of  the 
glory  of  the  Father.  But  once  produced  the  light  never 
ceases.  As  long  as  the  source  of  light  lasts,  the  light  conti- 
nues. So  is  it  with  the  Son  as  regards  the  Father.  Our  Savior 
is  the  Wisdom  of  God  :  but  this  Wisdom  is  the  radiance 
of  the  eternal  light3  ».  Hence,  nothing  shows  better  the 
dignity  of  the  Son  than  these  words :  Thou  art  my  Son,  to-day 
have  I  begotten  thee.  These  are  the  words  of  God  to  his 
Son;  and,  for  God,  to-day  is  forever;  for  there  is  no  night 
in  God,  nor  is  there,  I  am  sure,  any  morning,  but  His  day 
embraces,  so  to  speak,  His  entire  life,  not  produced  but 


1.  In  Matth.  fragm.,  P.  G.,  XVII.  Cf.  In  epist.  ad  Hebr.  fragm.,  P.  C., 
XIV,  1308. 

2.  Periarchon,  1.  iv,  28. 

3.  In  Jerem.,  homil.  ix,  4;  P.  G.,  mi,  357. 


140  GOD. 

eternal.  Such  is  the  «  to-day  »  when  the  Son  is  engendered. 
His  generation  has  no  beginning,  any  more  than  the  day 
of  his  generation  has1  ». 

St.  Athanasius.  — It  was  for  St.  Alhanasius  to  defend  and 
develop  the  doctrine  of  the  eternal  generation  of  the  Word 
against  the  Arians,  who  maintained  that  the  Logos  was  only 
the  first  creature  of  God.  He  based  the  doctrine  directly 
on  the  Holy  Scriptures.  He  that  reads  the  New  Testament , 
with  an  unprejudiced  mind,  says  he,  must  confess  that  Christ 
is  ihe  true  Son  of  God.  Such  is  the  general  testimony  of 
the  Gospels.  To  be  convinced  of  this,  all  one  has  to  do  is 
to  read  the  declarations  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  Him- 
self2. 

But  St.  Athanasius  uses  indirect  proofs,  also,  and  shows 
that  the  denial  of  this  thesis  would  lead  to  conclusions  that 
could  not  be  accepted.  If  the  Son  is  not  engendered,  he 
says,  the  Christian  faith  crumbles  to  nothing;  for,  we  are 
ever,  both  in  our  liturgical  formulas  and  in  our  prayers, 
associating  the  Father  and  the  Son3.  And,  if  the  Son  is 
not  engendered,  we  adore  several  unequal  Gods  and  we 
fall  into  pagan  polytheism4.  Moreover,  if  the  Son  is  not 
engendered,  the  Incarnation  becomes  useless  and  the  Redemp- 
tion vain .  For  Jesus  to  bring  humanity  into  communion  with 
God  it  was  necessary  that  He  be  flesh  and  that  He  be  also  God5. 

No  doubt,  also  says  this  illustrious  and  saintly  doctor, 
the  word  generation  is  astounding  when  applied  to  God; 
but  we  must  observe  well  that  it  is  so  with  all  our  words. 
They  all  take  on  a  different  meaning  when  transferred  from 
man  to  God6.  There  are  some  elements  of  our  concept  of 


1.  In  Joan.,  t.  I,  32 ;  P.  G.,  XIV,  77. 

2.  Contra  Arianos,  or.  I,  15,  16. 

3.  Ibid.,  or.  II,  46. 

4.  Ibid.,  or.  II,  49. 

5.  Ibid.,  or.  I,  16,  39;  or.  II. 

6.  Contra  Arianos,  or.  I,  23. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  141 

generation  that  are  applicable  to  God.  The  Son,  for  in- 
stance, has  His  origin  in  the  Father  and  is  the  same  in  nature 
as  the  Father1.  Other  elements  of  our  concepts,  on  the 
other  hand,  are  applicable  to  man  only,  and  we  must  be 
careful  not  to  push  the  comparison  too  far;  for,  whereas 
in  human  generation  there  is  a  succession  from  the  father 
to  the  son  and  from  the  son  to  the  father,  in  the  divine  ge- 
neration the  Father  and  the  Son  are  bound  by  eternal  rela- 
tions2. 


THE  THEOLOGY   OF   ST.    THOMAS. 

Leading  Principles.  —  St.  Thomas  seems  to  have  two 
guiding  principles  in  his  theology  on  the  divine  processions. 
The  first,  a  principle  of  faith,  can  be  formulated  as  follows  : 
«  We  must  admit  processions  in  God.  »  The  second  is  a 
principle  of  reason  :  «  The  term  procession  must  be  taken 
in  as  spiritual  a  sense  as  possible,  in  so  far  as  it  corresponds 
to  the  intellectual  life.  But  here  again  this  meaning  gives 
us  but  an  image  of  the  divine  reality.  » 

The  first  principle  is  evident.  The  Word  said  of  Him- 
self, in  St.  John's  Gospel  :  «  I  proceeded  from  the  Father3  ». 
And.  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Word  said  :  «  Who  proceeded 
from  the  Father4.  » 

The  second  principle  has  also  a  strong  claim  to  admis- 
sion. In  common  language  this  term,  procession,  conveys 
the  idea  of  a  transitive  action,  that  is  to  say,  an  action  which 
terminates  outside  of  the  substance  of  its  principle.  But 
such  a  procession  is  impossible  in  God.  In  Him,  in  fact,  the 
principle  and  the  term  have  but  one  and  the  same  sub- 


1.  Ibid.,  or.  I,  20. 

2.  Ibid.,  or.  I,  21,  22. 

3.  JN.,  viii,  42. 

4.  Ibid.,  xv,  26. 


142  GOD. 

stance.  Hence  we  have  to  compare  the  divine  procession  to 
those  immanent  actions  which,  in  us,  constitute  intellectual 
life.  Here  again,  no  doubt,  we  can  get  but  defective  images ; 
for  everything  that  goes  on  within  us  bears  the  imprint  of 
inevitable  imperfection.  Nevertheless,  these  images,  though 
defective,  are  of  some  help,  for  we  see  repeated  within  the 
narrow  limits  of  our  soul  that  which  goes  on  in  the  divine 
immensity1. 

The  Procession  of  the  Son-  —  It  is,  then,  by  examining 
the  immanent  operations  of  our  own  intellectual  life  that 
we  must  arrive  at  some  idea  of  the  divine  processions.  We 
shall,  for  the  time  being,  consider  the  procession  of  the  Son 
only. 

Every  time  we  think,  a  procession  takes  place  in  us, 
that  is,  an  intellectual  concept  comes  from  our  knowledge  of 
objects.  This  is  what  \ve  call  the  interior  word,  and  it  pre- 
cedes the  spoken  word2.  The  more  profound  our  intelli- 
gence, the  more  intimate  is  our  concept,  and  the  more  closely 
does  it  tend  to  become  identified  with  the  intelligence 
itself3.  This  is  what  goes  on  in  us.  But,  God  thinks  because 


1.  Sum.  Theol.,  la,  q.  xxvn,  a.  i  :  Cum  autem  Deus  sit  super  omnia,  ea 
qu3R  in  Deo  dicuntur,  non  sunt  intelligenda  secundum  modum  infimarum 
creaturarum,  quae  sunt  corpora,  sed  secundum  similitudinem  supremarum 
creaturarum,  qv.sc  sunt  inlellectuales  substantial,  a  quibus  etiam  similitudo 
acccpta  deficit  a  reprxsentatione  divinorum.  Non  ergo  accipienda  est  pro- 
cessio,  secundum  quod  est  in  corporalibus  vel  per  motum  localem,  vel  per 
actionem  alicujus  causx  in  exterior  em  effectum,  ut  calor  a  calefaciente  in 
calefactum;  sed  secundum  emanalionem  intelligibilem,  utpote  verbi  inlelli- 
gibilis  a  dicente,  quod  manet  in  ipso.  Et  sic  fides  catholica  processionem 
ponit  in  divinis. 

2.  Ibid.  :  Quicumque  autem  inlelligit,  ex  hoc  ipso  quod  inlelligit,  pro- 
cedit  aliquid  intra  ipsum,  quod  est  conceptio  rei  intellects,  ex  ejus  notitia 
procedens.  Quani  quidem  conceptionem  vox  significat,  el  dicitur  verbum 
cordis  significatum  verbo  vocis. 

3.  Ibid.,  ad2um  :  Manifestum  est  enimquod  quanta  aliquid  magis  intelli- 
gitur,  lanto  conceptio  inlellectualis  est  magis  intima  intelligent,  et  magis 
unum.  Kam  inlelleclus  secundum  hoc  quod  actu  intelligit,  secundum  hoc  fit 
unum  cum  intellecto.  Unde  cum  divinum  intelligere  sit  in  fine  perfectionis, 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  143 

He  is  a  pure  spirit;  and,  for  a  pure  spirit,  to  live  is  to  think. 
And  besides,  faith  tells  us  that  God  has  a  Word.  If  we  com- 
bine these  two  elements,  the  one  rational,  the  other  revealed, 
we  shall  conclude  by  saying  :  «  In  the  divine  simplicity,  we 
must  distinguish  between  the  God  who  thinks  and  the  Word  of 
God,  and  we  must  oppose  the  one  to  the  other  as  the  thinking- 
principle  and  the  term  of  the  thought.  »  The  first  proces- 
sion that  we  find  in  God  is,  then,  analogical  to  the  mental 
word,  which,  though  it  proceeds  from  the  intellect,  yet  re- 
mains in  it. 

This  Procession  is  Generation.  --  We  have  generation, 
says  St.  Thomas,  when,  from  a  living  and  conjugate  prin- 
ciple, there  results  a  living  being  of  the  same  kind  and  spe- 
cies 1 . 

But,  by  the  very  fact  that  God  thinks,  His  thought  is 
Himself,  and  He  reproduces  Himself  completely  in  an  inte- 
rior Word,  and  this  Word  contains  identically  the  per- 
fections of  God  :  being,  life,  eternity,  divinity.  This  is  truly 
a  Son  consubstantial  to  the  Father ;  and  everything  is  com- 
mon, all  is  one  between  the  Father  and  the  Son,  save  that 
the  Father  is  the  thinking  God  and  the  Son  is,  as  it  were, 
the  God-thought,  quasi  Deus  intellectus-;  or,  to  put  it  more 
exactly,  save  that  the  Father  is  God  speaking  intellectually, 
and  the  Son  is  His  intellectual  Word. 

The  procession  of  the  Son  has,  then,  all  the  characteris- 
tics of  a  true  generation.  The  Son  proceeds  from  the  Father 
by  an  intellectual  act,  which  is  the  vital  operation  of  God; 
He  springs  from  a  conjugate  principle ;  He  resembles  this 
conjoint  principle  in  all  things.  Procession  in  God  is,  then, 
properly  called  generation,  and  the  Word  which  proceeds 
is  rightly  called  the  Son. 

necesse  est  quod  verbum  divinum  sit  perfects  unum  cum  eo  a  quo  procedit, 
absque  omni  diversitale. 

1.  Sum.  Theol.,  I",  q.  xxvn,  a.  2. 

2.  Contra  Gentes,  1.  IV,  c.  11. 


144  GOD. 

Nevertheless,  even  though  the  Word  springs  eternally 
from  a  conjugate  principle,  He  remains  eternally  united  to 
it.  And  this,  because  in  God  generation  is  an  act  which 
lasts  for  eternity.  All  that  the  Father  is,  is  that  He  begets 
the  Son;  all  that  the  Son  is,  is  that  He  is  begotten  of  the 
Father.  This  character,  peculiar  to  eternal  generation  and 
distinctive  of  it,  far  from  weakening  it,  gives  it,  on  the  con- 
trary, that  quality  of  infinite  perfection  which  all  the  divine 
operations  have  of  necessity  '. 

ARTICLE  II 

The  Holy  Ghost  Proceeds,  from  all  eternity,  from  the 
Father  and  the  Son,  as  from  a  common  principle. 

Doctrine  of  the  Church.  —  Procession,  as  we  said  in 
the  preceding  article,  is  a  real  relation  of  origin. 

Now,  whereas  the  Son  proceeds  from  the  Father,  the 
Holy  Ghost  proceeds  from  the  Father  and  the  Son,  as  from 
a  common  principle. 

Hence,  the  principle  whence  the  Holy  Ghost  springs  is 
not  the  Father  alone,  nor  the  Son  alone;  but  it  is  at  once 
the  Father  and  the  Son,  and  the  Father  complete  and  the  Son 
complete.  It  is  not  by  juxtaposition,  nor  by  the  combination 
of  two  actions,  the  action  of  the  Father  and  the  action  of  the 
Son;  but  only  one  really  indivisible  action,  since  it  is  pro- 
duced by  the  simultaneous  action  of  the  Father  and  the  Son. 
Just  as  the  Son  requires  the  Father,  and  just  as  His  personal- 
ity consists  in  this  that  He  is  eternally  engendered  by  the 


1.  Sum.  theol.,  1%  q.  xxvii,  a.  2  :  Sic  igitur  processio  Verbi  in  divinis 
habet  rationem  generationis ;  procedit  enim  per  modum  intelligibilis  aclio- 
nis,  qux  est  operatio  mix,  el  a  principio  conjunclo,  el  secundum  rationem 
similitudinis  :  quia  conceptio  intellectus  est  similitude  rei  intellects,  et  in 
eadem  natura  existens  :  quia  in  Deo  idem  est  inlelligere  et  esse.  Unde  pro- 
cessio Verbi  in  divinis  dicitur  generalio,  et  ipsum  Verbum  proccdens  di- 
citur  Fttius. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  145 

Father;  so  the  Holy  Ghost  requires  the  Father  and  the  Son, 
so,  too,  His  personality  consists  in  this  that  He  is  eternally 
put  forth  by  the  Father  begetting  the  Son.  Furthermore, 
just  as  the  Father  requires  the  Son  and  would  cease  to  exist 
were  the  Son  to  go  out  of  existence,  so  the  Father,  conjointly 
with  the  Son,  requires  the  Holy  Ghost  and  would  cease  being 
a  conjugate  principle,  and  consequently  would  cease  to  exist 
at  all,  were  the  existence  of  the  Holy  Ghost  to  stop. 

The  procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost  was  defined  as  follows 
by  the  council  of  Constantinople,  in  381  :  «  We  believe  in 
the  Holy  Ghost  who  is  Lord,  who  gives  life,  who  proceeds 
from  the  Father,  who  is  to  be  honored  and  glorified  with  the 
Father  and  the  Son,  who  spoke  through  the  Prophets  *.  » 

As  we  can  see,  the  Fathers  were  content  to  define  that  the 
Holy  Ghost  proceeded  from  the  Father.  But  if  they  spoke  in 
this  way,  it  was  only  «  to  avoid  having  the  Son  taken  for  the 
primordial  principle  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  as  though  He  did  not 
derive  from  the  Father  the  virtue  according  to  which  the 
Holy  Ghost  proceeded  from  Him2  ». 

Nevertheless,  such  an  incomplete  formula   for  so  im 
portant  a  doctrine  could  not  suffice.     And,  from  the  filth  cen- 
tury, several  particular  councils  held  in  the  West  declared 
that  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeded  from  the  Father  and  the  Son 3. 

Finally,  the  fourth  Lateran  council  (1215)  gave  the 
following  definition  :  Pater  a  nullo,  Filius  autem  a  solo 
Patre,  ac  Spiritus  Sanctus  ab  utroque  pariter  4.  And  the 
second  council  of  Lyons  likewise  declared  (1274)  :  Fatemur 
quod  Spiritus  Sanctus  xternaliter  a  Patre  et  Filio,  non 
tanquam  ex  duobus  principiis,  sed  tanquam  ex  uno  princi- 


\.  DENZ.  86. 

2.  Cardinal  Bessarion,  at  the  Council  of  Florence,  explained  in  that  manner  why 
the  Greek'Fathers  constantly  refused  to  say  that  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeds  (iv.no- 
peikuSai)  from  the  Father  and  the  Son.  Cf.  BESSARION,  Orat.dogm.  pro  unione, 
c.  vi;  P.  G.,  CLXI,  581.    We  shall  see  better,  later  on,  the  bearing  of  this  remark. 

3.  See  the  xr  council  of  Toledo  (675),  DENZ.,  277. 

4.  DENZ.,  428. 

T.  i.  10 


146  GOD. 

pio,  non  duabus  spirationibus  sed  unica  spiratione  procedit^. 
The  council  of  Florence  (1438)  took  this  formula  and  made 
it  more  definite  :  Spiritus  Sanctus  ex  Patre  et  Filio  sterna- 
liter  est,  et  essentiam  suam  suumqiie  esse  subsistens  habet 
ex  Patre  simul  et  ex  utroque  xternaliter  lanquam  ab  uno 
principio  et  una  spiratione  procedit  ~. 

We  shall  seek  the  foundations  of  this  doctrine  in  the  New 
Testament  and  in  the  Tradition  of  the  Fathers.  And  in  the 
third  place  we  shall  give  St.  Thomas'  explanation  of  the 
same  doctrine. 

SECTION  I 

The  New  Testament. 

The  Holy  Ghost  Proceeds  from  the  Father.  —  The  fact 
that  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeds  from  the  Father,  is  taught  in  the 
New  Testament  in  a  rather  casual  manner.  In  several  pas- 
sages, the  Holy  Ghost  is  said  formally  to  proceed  from  the 
Father3,  to  be  given  by  the  Father4,  to  come  from  God5, 
that  is,  the  Father. 

The  Holy  Ghost  Proceeds  from  the  Son.  —  The  Holy 
Ghost  proceeds  not  only  from  the  Father  but  He  comes  from 
the  Son  as  well.  This  doctrine,  though  less  common  by  far 
than  the  first,  is  indicated  in  certain  passages  of  the  New 
Testament.  The  Son  will  send  the  Paraclete  from  the  Father  6, 
says  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  John.  Wishing  to  manifest 
to  His  Apostles  the  gift  he  was  making  them,  the  Savior 
breathed  on  them,  saying  :  «  Receive  ye  the  Holy  Ghost 7  ». 


1.  Ibid.,  460. 

2.  Ibid.,  691. 

3.  JN.,  iv,  26. 

4.  Ibid.,  xiv,  16. 

5.  /  Cor,  n,  12. 

6.  JN.,  xv,  26. 

7.  Ibid.,  xx,  22. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  147 

In  this  latter  text,  the  action  accompanies  the  word  to  show 
that  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeds  from  the  Son  also. 

This  doctrine  is  clearly  taught  also  by  St.  Paul.  God 
has  sent  into  your  hearls  the  Spirit  of  His  Son  in  order  to 
lead  you  to  give  yourselves  up  to  the  Father,  he  writes  to 
the  Galatians  *.  And  to  the  Romans  :  «  Now  if  any  man  have 
not  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  he  is  none  of  His2  ».  So,  according 
to  this  Apostle,  the  Spirit  of  God  is  equally  the  Spirit  of  the 
Son. 

The  Holy  Ghost  proceeds  from  the  Father  and  the  Son 
as  from  a  conjoint  principle.  —  Even  this  special  feature  of 
the  procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  according  to  which  the 
Holy  Ghost  proceeds  from  the  Father  and  the  Son  as  from  a 
common  principle,  is  indicated  in  the  Gospel  according  to 
St.  John.  In  fact,  the  Holy  Ghost  is  represented  as  coming 
from  the  Father  through  the  Son3.  This  is  precisely  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Greek  Fathers  of  the  fourth  century  and  the 
fifth,  when  they  say  that  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeds  from  the 
Father  in  so  far  as  He  is  Father,  or  from  the  Son  inasmuch  as 
He  is  Son.  The  Holy  Ghost  proceeds  from  the  Father  inas- 
much as  He  is  Father,  that  is,  inasmuch  as  He  begets  a  Son. 
In  other  words,  He  proceeds  from  the  Father  through  the 
Son,  the  Father  and  the  Son  being  considered  as  one  con- 
joint principle. 

SECTION  II 
The  Tradition  of  the  Fathers. 

General  Idea.  —  About  the  year  360,  the  Arians,  as  we 
have  said,  unable  to  bring  to  success  their  ideas  about  the 


1.  Gal.,  iv,  6. 

2.  Rom.,  vui,  9. 

3.  JN.,  xv,  26. 


148  GOD. 

Son  reopened  the  struggle  by  attacking  the  person  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  The  Macedonians  said  that  the  Holy  Ghost  was  only 
a  creature  of  the  Son.  St.  Athanasius,  and  then  St.  Basil  and 
St.  Gregory  Nazianzene,  took  up  the  defense  of  orthodoxy. 
From  the  Holy  Scriptures,  by  rigorous  reasoning  they 
demonstrated  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  God  and  equal  to  the 
Father  and  the  Son.  This  doctrine  was  confirmed  by  the 
council  of  Constantinople  in  the  year  381.  At  the  same 
time,  the  Greek  Fathers  of  the  end  of  the  fourth  century  were 
led  to  expose  with  more  precision  the  doctrine  of  the  pro- 
cession of  the  Holy  Ghost.  This  work  was  continued  during 
the  fifth  century;  and,  until  the  seventh,  both  the  Greek 
and  the  Latin  Fathers  were  in  perfect  accord  upon  the  ques- 
tion. From  this  time  on,  the  Greek  Fathers  upbraided  the 
Latins  for  having  introduced  into  the  symbol  of  Nicaea  and 
Constantinople  the  word  Filioque.  And  yet  this  innovation 
made  by  the  Latins  was  perfectly  legitimate. 

The  Greek  Fathers  at  the  End  of  the  fourth  century  and 
the  Doctrine  of  the  Procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  —  The 
Father  is  the  starting  point,  the  origin,  the  principle  of  the 
Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  declarations  of  the  Greek 
Fathers  on  this  subject  are  as  explicit  as  can  be. 

But  does  the  Son  play  a  part  in  the  procession  of  the 
Holy  Ghost?  If  so,  in  what  does  it  consist?  Is-the  Son  the 
passive  intermediary  of  the  substance  of  the  Father,  like  a 
canal  which  transmits  the  water  it  receives  from  a  river? 
Or  does  He,  on  the  contrary,  participate  in  the  fecundity 
of  the  Father  so  far  as  to  continue  with  the  Father  as  the 
conjoint  principle  whence  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeds?  Such 
are  the  questions  that  we  Westerners  freely  ask  ourselves  in 
reading  the  writings  of  the  Greek  Fathers. 

And,  first  of  all,  there  is  no  doubt  that  according  to  the 
Greek  Fathers  of  the  fourth  century  the  Son  does  play  a 
part  in  the  procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

On  this  point,  St.  Athanasius  declares  that  the  Holy  Ghost 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  149 

is  the  spirit  of  the  Son,  His  «  sanctifying-  and  illuminating 
power,  which  is  said  to  proceed  from  the  Father  (lx  icatpb? 
sxTCcpeueaOai),  since  the  Son,  who  comes  from  the  Father, 
causes  it  to  shine,  sends  it,  and  imparts  it1  ».  And  again  he 
says  that  the  Holy  Ghost  pertains  to  the  Son  as  the  Son  per- 
tains to  the  Father  :  «  Since  the  Son,  because  He  comes  from 
the  Father,  belongs  to  the  Father's  substance,  the  Holy  Ghost, 
who  is  said  to  be  from  God,  must,  of  necessity,  be  the  pro- 
perty, according  to  His  substance,  of  the  Son2.  »  In  other 
words,  the  Holy  Ghost  receives  His  being  from  the  Son,  just 
as  the  Son  receives  His  being-  from  the  Father. 

In  a  similar  strain,  St.  Basil  writes  :  «  That  relation  which 
exists  between  the  Father  and  the  Son  exists  between  the 
Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost...  The  Holy  Ghost  comes  from  the 
Father,  He  is  like  the  breath  from  His  mouth...  But  He 
emanates  from  the  Father  through  His  only  Son3  ». 

St.  Gregory  of  Nyssa  compares  the  Father,  the  Son,  and 
the  Holy  Ghost  to  three  torches,  the  first  of  which  imparts 
light  to  the  second,  and,  through  it,  to  the  third4.  From 
the  teaching  implied  in  this  metaphor  we  see  that,  accord- 
ing to  St.  Gregory,  the  Holy  Ghost  comes  from  the  Father 
and  the  Son. 

Didymus  the  Blind  does  not  deviate  from  this.  The  Holy 
Ghost,  he  says,  is  the  image  of  the  Son  ,  just  as  the  Son  is  the 
image  of  the  Father5.  And,  elsewhere,  the  Holy  Ghost,  he 
says,  proceeds  from  the  Son6. 

St.  Epiphanius  speaks  in  a  way  that  reminds  us  of  the 


1.  Ad  Scrap.,  epist.  I,  20;  P.  G.  XXVI,  578. 

2.  Ibid.,  21. 

3.  De  Spiritu  Sanc/o,  43,  46,  47 ;  P.  G.,  XXXII. 

4.  Adv.  maced.,  f>;  P.  G.,  XLV,  1308. 

5.  De  Trinitate,  \.  II,  c.  v ;  P.  G.,  XXXIX,  50i. 

C.  De  Spiritu  sanclo,  36  :  Spiritus  quoque  Sanctus  qui  est  Spiritus  veri- 
tatis,  Spiritusque  sapientix,  non  potest,  Filio  loqvente,  audire  qux  nescit, 
cum  hoc  ipsum  sit  quod  profertur  a  Filio,  id  est  procedens  a  veritate, 
consolator  manans  de  consolatore,  Detu  de  Deo,  Spiritus  veritalis  procedens. 


150  GOD. 

Latins.  «  The  Holy  Ghost  »,  writes  he,  «  is  not  the  Son,  but 
He  is  of  the  substance  itself  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son1  ». 
And  farther  on,  in  the  same  treatise,  he  says  that  «  Christ 
is  held  to  be  of  the  Father,  God  of  God  :  the  Holy  Ghost  is  of 
Christ,  or  of  both  (rcap'  aix^siepwv),  as  Christ  says,  in  St.  John  £ 
'  He  proceeds  from  the  Father  and  He  will  receive  of  me2.  '» 
<c  Just  as  there  are  adoptive  sons,  so  there  are  spirits  by 
adoption  and  calling-;  but  the  Holy  Ghost  alone,  (as  coming) 
from  the  Father  and  the  Son  (axb  Harps?  xal  Ybu),  is  called 
the  Spirit  of  truth,  and  the  Spirit  of  God,  the  Spirit  of  Christ, 
and  the  Spirit  of  Grace3.  » 

These  testimonies  are  sufficient  to  show  that,  according 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  Greek  Fathers  at  the  end  of  the  fourth 
century,  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeds  indeed  from  the  Father, 
but  also  from  the  Son. 

It  is  likewise  equally  clear  that,  according1  to  this 
teaching-  the  Son  is  not  simply  an  intermediary  of  the 
substance  of  the  Father;  He  participates  in  the  fecundity 
of  the  Father ;  He  is  with  the  Father,  although  under  the 
Father,  the  dynamic  principle  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

The  Greek  Fathers  of  the  Fifth  Century.  —  The  teaching 
of  the  Greek  Fathers  of  the  fifth  century  on  the  procession 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  more  fully  developed  and  at  the  same 
time  more  concise  than  that  of  the  preceding1  centuries.  The 
Macedonian  party  needed  no  longer  to  be  handled  so  care- 
fully. The  struggle,  too,  was  now  against  the  Nestorians, 
whose  teachings  reverted  to  the  affirmation  that  the  Christ 
was  but  a  mere  creature  sanctified  by  the  coming  of  the 
Holy  Ghost. 

The  great  adversary  of  Nestorianism  was  St.  Cyril  of 
Alexandria.  Consequently,  it  is  to  the  writings  of  this  great 


1.  Ancoratus,  7;  P.  G.,  XLIII,  29. 

2.  Ibid.,  67. 

3.  Ibid.,  72. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  151 

Doctor  that  we  must  turn  to  find  the  Greek  doctrine  on  the 
procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Like  St.  Athanasius,  St.  Cyril  says  that  the  Holy  Ghost 
is  of  the  Son;  He  is  the  Son's  own,  because  He  comes  from 
the  Son  and  through  Him  (cl'xoOsv  cuv  apa  xai  Trap'  auioD  tz 
nvsuiJta  au-ou).  Hence,  he  concludes  against  Nestorius,  the 
Son  does  not  possess  the  Spirit  by  participation,  like  the 
soul  of  one  sanctified  l. 

Like  St.  Epiphanius,  Didymus,  and  the  other  Greek 
Fathers  of  the  fourth  century,  St.  Cyril  declares  that  the 
Holy  Ghost  comes  from  the  Father  and  the  Son2,  or  from 
both  (oi,ajjLoofv  3). 

Nevertheless,  St.  Cyril  makes  use  of  a  formula,  which 
St.  John  Damascene,  in  the  eighth  century,  will  look  upon 
as  the  most  perfect  expression  of  the  procession  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  «  The  Spirit,  »  he  writes,  «  is  the  Spirit  of  God  the 
Father  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  Spirit  of  the  Son,  spring- 
ing, in  substance,  from  both  at  once  (s;  a^oiv),  that  is  to 
say,  coming  from  the  Father  through  the  Son  (sx.  Tea-peg  5i' 
Ybj)4  ».  So,  according  to  St.  Cyril,  the  Spirit  comes  from 
both  at  once,  which  means,  as  he  tells  us,  that  He  comes 
from  the  Father  through  the  Son.  He  considers  these  two 
formulas  as  identical,  though,  for  him,  the  second  is  but  the 
explanation  of  the  first.  The  Holy  Ghost  comes  at  once  from 
both  Father  and  Son ;  but  this  takes  place  according  to  a 
certain  order  :  He  comes  from  the  Father  through  the  Son. 
In  fact,  the  Father,  in  begetting  the  Son,  makes  this  same 
Son,  conjointly  with  Himself,  the  active  principle  of  the 
Holy  Ghost. 

St.  Augustine  and  the  Doctrine  of  the  Procession  of  the 


1.  Adv.  Nest.,  1.  IV,  c.  i:  P.  G.,  LXXVI,  173. 
1.  Thesaurus,  assert.  XXXIV;  P.  G.,  LXXV,  585. 

3.  De  recta  fide,  21;  P.  G.,  LXXV,  1408. 

4.  De  adoralione,  II;  P.  G.,  LXV1II.  148. 


152  GOD. 

Holy  Ghost.  -  At  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century,  then, 
two  formulas  were  used  in  the  East  to  express  the  doctrine 
of  the  procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  It  was  put  either  that 
the  Holy  Ghost  proceeded  «  from  the  two  together  »,  or  that 
He  proceeded  «  from  the  Father  through  the  Son  ».  And 
St.  Cyril  held  these  two  expressions  as  equivalent. 

Now,  St.  Augustine,  at  the  same  time,  used  the  same 
language.  The  Father  engenders  the  Son,  wrote  he,  in 
such  a  way  that,  from  this  generation,  there  results  the 
procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost1.  So  the  Holy  Ghost  comes 
from  the  two  together,  from  the  Father  and  the  Son.  But, 
since  it  is  the  Father  who,  in  engendering  the  Son,  makes 
this  Son,  in  union  with  Himself,  the  principle  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  the  Holy  Ghost  comes  at  once  from  Father  and  Son, 
in  this  sense  that  He  comes  from  the  Father  through  the 
Son2. 

Moreover,  St.  Ambrose3,  St.  Hilary  of  Poitiers4,  and, 


1.  Contra  Maximinum,  1.  II,  c.  v;  P.  Z/..XLII,  761  :  Eccerespondeo,  sive 
capias,  sive  non  capias.  De  Patre  est  Filius,  de  Patre  est  Spiritus  Sanctus  : 
sedille  genitus,  iste  procedens  :  idea  Hie  Filius  est  Patris  de  quo  est  genitus : 
iste  autem  Spiritus  uiriusque,  quoniam  de  utroque  procedit.  Sed  ideo,  cum 
de  illo  Filius  loqueretur,  ait :  «  De  Patre  procedit,  »  quoniam  Pater  proces- 
sionis  ejus  est  auctor,  qui  talem  Filium  genuit,  et  gignendo  et  dedit  ut  etiam 
de  ipso  procederet  Spiritus  Sanctus.  Nam,  nisi  procederet  et  de  ipso,  non 
diceret  discipulis :  «  Accipite  Spiritum  Sanctum  »,  eumque  insufflando  daret, 
ut  a  se quoque  procedere  significans  aperte  ostenderet  flando  quod  spirando 
dabat  occulte...  Amborum  est  ergo  Spiritus,. procedendo  de  ambobus. 

2.  De  Trinitate,  1.  XV,  c.  xvn,  29;  P.  L.,  XLH,  1081  :  Non  frustra  in  hoc 
Trinitate,  non  dicitur  Verbum  Dei  nisi  Filius,  nee  Donum  Dei  nisi  Spirilus 
Sanctus,  nee  de  quo  genitum  est  Verbum  et  de  quo  procedit  principaliter 
Spiritus  Sanctus  nisi  Deus  Pater.  Ideo  autem  addidi  principaliter,  quiaetde 
Filio  Spiritus  Sanctus  procedere  reperitur.  Sed  hoc  quoque  illi  Pater  dedit, 
non  jam  existenti  et  nondum  habenti  :  sed  quidquid  unigenilo  Verbo  dedit, 
gignendo  dedit.  Sic  ergo  eum  genuit,  ut  etiam  de  illo  Donum  commune  pro- 
cederet; et  Spiritus  Sanclus  Spiritus  esset  amborum. 

3.  De  Spiritu  Sancto,  1. 1,  c.  x ;  P.  L.,  XVI,  733  :  Spiritus  quoque  Sanctus, 
cum  procedit  a  Patre  et  Filio,  non  separatur  a  Patre,  non  separatur  a 
Filio. 

4.  De  Trinitate,  1.  II,  29;  P.  L.,  X,  69  :  Loqui  de  eo  [Spiritu  Sancto]  non 
necesse  est,  quia  Patre  et  Filio  auctoribus  confitendus  est. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  153 

some  time  before  them,  Tertullian1,  expressed  this  doctrine 
in  just  about  the  same  terms. 

The  Graeco-Latin  Conflict  on  the  Filioque.  —  Until  the 
beginning  of  the  seventh  century,  there  was  not  a  sign  of 
dissension  between  the  East  and  the  West  as  to  the  procession 
of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

The  Greeks  say  that  the  Holy  Ghost  comes  «  from  the 
two  together  »,  or,  «  from  the  Father  through  the  Son  ». 

Yet,  the  formula  «  from  the  Father  through  the  Son  » 
came  more  and  more  into  favor  with  them. 

And  when  they  wish  to  speak  of  the  origin  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  they  do  not  resort  to  any  term  that  presents  itself;  but, 
if  they  affirm  that  the  Holy  Ghost  comes  «  from  the  Father  » , 
they  always  use  the  word  exzcpstJeaOai;  and  if  they  say  that 
the  Holy  Ghost  comes  «  from  the  Son  »,  or  «  from  the  two 
together  »,  or  «  from  the  Father  through  the  Son  »,  they 
use  the  word  lupstevai,  or  some  other  word.  The  reason  for 
this  distinction  is  that  the  Father,  who  begets  the  Son,  in 
doing  so  makes  the  Son  the  co-principle,  with  Himself,  of 
the  Holy  Ghost.  The  Holy  Ghost  comes  principally,  therefore, 
from  the  Father;  and  the  word  eK-opeueuOat  brings  out  this 
idea.  Moreover,  Scripture  reserves  this  word  to  indicate 
that  the  Holy  Ghost  comes  from  the  Father2. 

The  Latins,  on  tjie  other  hand,  say  that  the  Holy  Ghost 
comes  «  from  the  Father  and  the  Son  »,  a  Patre  et  Filio,  or, 
ab  utroque.  They  are  acquainted  with  the  Greek  formula 
«  from  the  Father  through  the  Son  »,  which  they  translate  : 
A  Patre  per  Filium,  and  which  they  are  willing  to  identify 
with  the  formula  ah  utroque. 

But  whether  they  wish  to  say  that  the  Holy  Ghost  comes 


1.  Adversus  Praxeam,  c.  vm;  P.  L.,  II,  164  :  Tertius  enim  est  Spiritus  a 
Deo  Filio,  sicut  tertius  a  radice,  fructus  ex  frutice.  Et  tertius  a  fonte,  rivus 
ex  flumine.  Et  terliu.i  a  sole,  apex  ex  radio. 

2.  Jrr.,  XT,  26. 


154  GOD. 

from  the  Father  or  from  the  Son,  they  use  only  the  verb 
procedere. 

Moreover,  the  Councils  of  Toledo,  beginning  in  H7, 
assert,  in  their  professions  of  faith,  the  procession  from  the 
Father  and  the  Son,  Filioque.  The  introduction  of  this 
formula  in  the  Credo  sung  by  the  faithful  was  but  a  step 
farther. 

So,  if  there  was  until  the  Vllth  century,  perfect  under- 
standing between  the  Greeks  and  the  Latins  on  the  question 
of  the  procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  it  was  not  because  there 
had  long  been  wanting  something  on  both  sides  to  quarrel 
about.  It  Avas  inevitable  that  some  day  or  other  the  ill- 
disposed  should  take  advantage  of  those  disagreements. 

Difficulties  first  arose  about  the  year  650.  Pope  St.  Mar- 
tin had  just  condemned,  in  the  Lateran  council  (649),  all  the 
Greek  heresies  and,  in  particular,  Monothelism,  which  was 
much  in  favor  at  Constantinople.  Following  this,  as  we 
learn  from  St.  Maximus,  in  a  letter  to  the  priest  Marinus, 
«  they  of  the  Queen  City  »,  that  is  Constantinople,  picked 
up  two  passages  from  the  Synodic  of  the  Holy  Father.  The 
first  of  these  was  about  the  Trinity.  They  reproached  him 
for  having  said  that  the  Holy  Ghost  «  proceeds  from  the 
Father  and  the  Son1  ».  The  incident  appears  to  have  been 
but  trivial. 

But,  in  the  year  809,  the  atmosphere  became  again 
clouded  and  this  time  the  storm  broke.  There  were  some 
Latin  monks  at  Constantinople  who  incorporated  the  Filioque 
ia  their  chant;  and,  for  this,  certain  Greek  monks  upbraided 
them.  A.  battle  ensued.  The  Latins  carried  their  protest  to 
Pope  Leo  III,  and  they  declared  that  their  custom  was  legiti- 
mate and  in  use  even  at  the  court  of  Charlemagne.  The  Pope 
heard  their  protest  and  wrote  the  eastern  Churches  a  letter 
in  which  he  twice  repeated  that  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeds 


1.  Epist.ad  Mar.,  P.  L.,  XCI,  134. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  155 

from  the  Father  and  the  Son.  At  the  same  time  Charlemagne 
called  a  council  at  Aix-la-Chapelle  for  the  purpose  of  dis- 
cussing the  question.  The  ¥ilioque  was  there  solemnly 
proclaimed.  Nevertheless,  Leo  III,  while  approving  the 
doctrine  of  this  council  without  reserve  and  ordaining  that 
it  be  taught,  blamed  them  for  having  introduced  this  formula 
in  the  Creed.  He  feared  that  this  would  provoke  discussions 
between  the  Latins  and  the  Greeks.  But  right  or  wrong, 
the  logic  of  the  matter  prevailed  and  the  Filioque  was  still 
sung.  In  1014,  the  Emperor  St.  Henry  II  asked  Pope  Bene- 
dict VIII  have  it  sung  also  in  Rome.  The  Pope  consented1. 

The  Introduction  of  the  Filioque  into  the  Symbol  of 
Nicaea  and  Constantinople  Legitimate.  -  The  doctrine  of 
the  procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost  from  the  Father  and  the  Son 
has  always  been  a  point  of  faith,  in  the  eastern  as  well  as 
in  the  western  church.  It  was  contained  by  implication  in 
the  Creed  of  Constantinople.  If  not  expressed  in  explicit 
terms,  this  was  only  to  avoid  causing  disputes  which  were 
properly  judged  to  be  useless  and  dangerous.  Nevertheless, 
it  was  only  proper  that,  on  such  a  fundamental  article,  the 
Creed  should  be  rendered  as  precise  as  possible.  When  the 
Latins  saw  that  the  Greeks  attached  excessive  importance  to 
what  they  considered  a  question  of  mere  form,  what  they 
had  looked  upon  as  only  fitting  they  now  regarded  as  strict 
duty.  Every  precaution  was  taken  not  to  offend  the  Greeks ; 
but  when  it  had  become  evident  that  the  question  of  words 
threatened  to  develop  into  formal  heresy,  they  came  out 
boldly  with  their  declaration.  The  council  of  Florence  (1438) 
declared  that  the  introduction  of  the  Filioque  was  both 
lawful  and  reasonable2. 


1.  See  the  genuine  details  of  this  long  dispute  in  'In.  de  RECKON,  Etudes 
sur  la  Trk*  sainte  Trinite,  Etude  XXIII. 

2.  DENZ.,  091  :  Diffinimus  explicalionem  verborum  illorum  •  Filioque  », 
veritalis  declarandx  gratia,  et  imminenle  tune  necessitate,  licite  ac  rationa- 
biliter  fiymbolo  fuissc  appositam. 


136  GOD. 


SECTION  III 

St.  Thomas'  Theology. 

The  distinguishing  Feature  of  the  Second  Procession.  — 
We  see  in  our  rational  soul  not  only  the  act  of  the  intellect, 
whereby  we  understand,  but  also  the  act  of  the  will,  whereby 
we  love.  And,  observes  St.  Thomas,  just  as,  through  our 
intellectual  concepts,  the  object  known  is  present  to  our 
intellect,  so,  through  love,  the  object  loved  is  present,  so  to 
speak,  to  him  who  loves1. 

But,  can  we  compare  the  procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost  to 
love,  as  we  compared  the  generation  of  the  Son  to  thought? 
The  Angelic  Doctor  answers  that  we  can.  For,  on  the  one 
hand,  there  is  nothing  to  which  we  can  compare  the  divine 
processions  but  the  immanent  actions  that  make  up  the  in- 
tellectual life  of  man;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Sacred 
Scriptures  speak  of  the  Holy  Ghost  as  the  term  of  love,  just  as 
they  represent  the  Son  as  the  Word,  that  is,  as  the  term  of 
thought.  Hence  are  all  the  names  given  the  Holy  Ghost 
indicative  of  love.  The  Spirit  is  the  Consoler,  the  Gift ;  His 
symbol  is  fire,  and  even  His  name,  which  is  used  of  material 
things  to  designate  the  breath  or  the  wind,  conveys  the  idea 
of  impulsion,  of  motion.  Now  it  is  characteristic  of  love  to 
drive,  to  draw  the  will  to  the  object  loved2.  Hence  must 
we  admit  in  the  divine  essence  this  procession  of  love  as  well 
as  that  of  the  Word. 


1.  Sum.  theol.,  la,  q.  xxxvn,  a.  I  :  Sicut  enim  ex  hoc  quod  aliquis  rem 
aliqnam  intelligit,  provenit  qunedam   intellectualis  conceptio  rei  intellectx 
in  intelligente,  qux  dicitur  verbum ;  ita  ex  hoc  quod  aliquis  rem  aliquam 
amat,  provenit  qusedam  impressio  (ut  ita  loquar)  rei  amatx  in  affectu 
amantis,  secundum  quam  amatum  dicitur  esse  in  amante,  sicut  et  intellec- 
tum  in  intelligente ;  ita  quod  cum  aliquid  se  ipsum  intelligit,  et  amat,  est 
in  se  ipso   non  solum  per   identitatem  rei,  sed  etiam  est  intellectum  in 
intelligente,  et  amatum  in  amante. 

2.  Sum.  theol.,  ia,  q.  XXVH,  a.  3. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  157 

The  Procession  of  Love  ab  Utroque.  —  To  love,  says 
St.  Thomas,  is  nothing  else  than  to  emit  the  breath  of  love, 
just  as  to  speak  is  to  produce  a  word,  to  bloom  is  to  put 
forth  flowers1.  God  speaks  forth  Himself  and  the  product 
is  His  Word.  God  loves  Himself,  too.  But  He  loves  Himself 
in  speaking  forth  Himself;  love  springs  forth  together  from 
God  who  speaks,  or  the  Father,  and  from  the  spoken  Word, 
or  the  Son.  In  other  words,  God,  in  thinking  Himself,  con- 
ceives His  Word,  who  is  at  the  same  time  the  reason  of  all 
things  that  God  thinks,  and,  consequently,  God  thinks  all 
things  when  He  thinks  Himself;  and  from  this  Word,  He 
proceeds  to  love  all  things  and  Himself.  As  has  been  well 
said  :  «  The  monad  engendered  the  monad,  and  it  reflected 
its  own  spirit  upon  itself 2.»  It  is  then  but  one  and  the  same 
love  which  proceeds  from  the  Father  and  the  Son  as  the  ter- 
minal expansion  of  the  divine  life.  God  does  not  love  Him- 
self through  the  Holy  Ghost;  but,  in  loving  Himself,  He 
breathes  forth  love,  just  as  the  tree,  in  blooming,  puts  forth 
flowers3. 

The  Procession  of  Love  is  not  Generation.  —  From  the 
very  fact  that  we  think  of  something,  as  we  have  said  after 
St.  Thomas,  there  comes  to  the  one  thinking  a  certain  con- 
ception of  the  thing  thought,  and  this  conception  we  call 
word.  So  too,  when  we  love  something,  there  is  produced 
in  the  affective  faculty  a  certain  impression  of  the  thing  loved, 
so  that  we  can  say  that  the  thing  loved  is  present  to  the 
lover  like  the  thing  thought  to  the  thinker.  There  is  this 


1.  Sum.  theol.,  i1,  q.  xxxvn,  a.  2. 

2.  Cf.  THOM.  AQ.,  De  polentia,  q.  ix,  8.  9. 

3.  Dante,  the  theologian  poet  of  the  xiv">  century  sums  up  that  wonderful 
doctrine  in  the  following  stanza  of  his  great  poem  : 

O  Light  eterne,  sole  in  thyself  that  dwellest, 
Sole  knowest  thyself,  and  known  unto  thyself, 
And  knowing,  lorest  and  smilest  on  thyself. 
Cf.  La  Dioina  Commedia,  Del  Paradiso,  canto  XXXHI. 


158  GOD. 

difference,  however,  between  the  intellect  and  the  will. 
The  intellect  thinks  only  when  the  thing  thought  of  is  in 
the  intellect  in  its  own  likeness ;  whereas  the  will  does  not 
will  in  that  it  has  a  certain  likeness  of  the  thing  willed,  but 
in  that  it  tends  to  the  thing  willed.  Hence  it  is  that  the  in- 
tellectual procession  comes  about  by  likeness ;  it  has,  as  a 
result,  the  character  of  generation,  since  everything  that  ge- 
nerates begets  its  like.  But  the  procession  which  we  com- 
pare to  the  willing  does  not  come  about  by  likeness  though  it 
entails  it;  it  has  not,  then,  the  character  of  generation,  but 
rather  of  inclination,  like  the  motion  which  impels  the  lover 
to  the  object  loved1.  This  procession  has,  then,  no  special 
name2. 

Conclusion  :  Circumincession.  —  We  have  learned  from 
the  exposition  of  the  divine  processions  that  God  the  Father 
is  nothing  but  He  who  begets  the  Son ;  the  Son  nothing  but 
He  who  is  eternally  begotten  of  the  Father ;  the  Holy 
Ghost  nothing  but  He  who  results  eternally  from  the  Father 
begetting  the  Son.  Hence,  the  three  divine  persons  are  so 
related  that  they  could  neither  exist  nor  be  conceived  of 
unless  together.  Likewise,  two  relative  terms  can  neither 


1.  Sum.  theol.,  1»,  q.  xxva,  a.  4  :  Processio  amoris  in  divinis  non  debet 
did  generatio.  Ad  cujus  evidentiam  sciendum  est,  quod  htec  esl  differentia 
inter  intellectum  et  voluntatem,  quod  intellectus  sit  in  actu  per  hoc  quod  res 
intellecta  est  in  intellectu  secundum  suam  similitudinem ;  voluntas  autem  fit 
in  actu,  non  per  hoc  quod  aliqua  similitudo  voliti  fit  in  voluntate,  sed  ex 
hoc  quod  voluntas  habet  quamdam  inclinationem  in  rem  volitam.  Processio 
igitur  qux  attenditur  secundum  rationem  intellectus,  est  secundum  rationem 
similitudinis ;  et  in  tantum  potest  habere  rationem  generationis,  quia  omne 
generans  generat  sibi  simile.  Processio  autem  qua:  attenditur  secundum  ra- 
tionem voluntatis,  non  consideratur  secundum  rationem  similitudinis,  sed 
magis  secundum  rationem  impellentis,  et  moventis  in  aliquid.  Et  ideo  quod 
procedit  in  divinis  per  modum  amoris,  non  procedit  ut  genitum,  vet  ut  fi- 
lius,  sed  magis  procedit  ut  spiritus  :  quo  nomine  qusedam  vitalis  mvtio  et 
impulsio  designatur,  prout  aliquis  ex  amore  dicitur  moveri,  vet  impelli  ad 
aliquid  faciendum. 

2.  76fd.ad  3Hm. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  159 

exist  nor  be  conceived  of  apart.  Since  the  property  of  each 
person  is  its  relation  of  origin,  each  by  his  very  nature 
is  drawn  to  the  utmost  towards  another  besides  himself. 
None  of  the  persons,  then,  can  abide  outside  of  the  others, 
for  the  very  nature  of  his  being  takes  him  continually 
into  the  others;  the  divine  persons  dwell  within  one  an- 
other by  virtue  of  real  reciprocal  irruption.  This  circulation 
of  the  Father  to  the  Son  and  of  the  Son  to  the  Father,  of  the 
Father  and  the  Son  to  the  Holy  Ghost  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
to  the  Father  and  the  Son,  is  what  the  Greeks  have  called 
perichoresis,  Trspr/wpYjaLc,  and  the  Latins  circumincession, 
circumincessio  l . 


1.  The  word  Ttepi/wpriat;  does  not  seem  to  have  been  applied  to  the  Trinity 
ebefore  St  John  Damascene.  The  Schoolmen  of  the  xvth  century  thought  they 
could  translate  it  by  the  word  circuminsessio  (from  the  verb  circuminsidere, 
synonym  of  inhabitare}.  Instead  of  designating  by  circuminsession  the  reci- 
procal relations  of  the  hypostases,  which  result  from  their  very  nature,  they 
rather  understand  the  reciprocal  inexistence  of  the  three  persons,  which 
results  from  their  consubstantiality.  Petau  protested  against  that  mistransla- 
tion. Cf.  De  Trinitate,  \.  iv,  c.  ivi,  2-4.  We  propose  to  translate  the  word 
jr£pixwpT)<";  by  the  Latin  circumincessio,  from  circumincedere,  the  active 
sense  of  which  seems  to  correspond  better  to  the  Greek.  See  TANQUEUEY,  Syn- 
opsis, De  Deo  trino,  650. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  DIVINE  MISSIONS 

After  examining  the  dogma  of  the  existence  of  one  God 
in  three  persons  and  the  dogma  of  the  divine  processions, 
we  know  as  much  as  can  be  known  about  the  mystery  of  the 
interior  life  of  the  Trinity,  vita  Dei  ad  intra.  After  that 
comes  the  question  of  the  life  of  God  as  regards  the  world, 
and  in  an  especial  manner,  as  regards  man,  vita  Dei  ad 
extra.  The  exterior  life  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
constitutes  what  is  called  the  divine  missions,  or  more 
exactly,  the  missions  of  the  divine  persons;  and,  on  this 
point,  the  doctrine  is  summed  up  in  the  following  for- 
mula :  «  The  Father  sends  the  Son  into  the  world;  the 
Holy  Ghost  is  sent  by  the  Father  and  the  Son.  » 

This  chapter  will  be  divided  into  two  brief  articles,  the 
first  of  which  will  be  devoted  to  the  divine  missions,  and 
the  second  to  some  secondary  questions  relative  to  the  divine 
missions. 

ARTICLE  I. 
The  Divine  Missions. 

Object  and  Division  of  this  Article.  —  It  is  proper  to 
describe  first  the  missions  of  the  Holy  Ghost;  then  we  shall 
take  up  the  missions  of  the  Son;  and  finally,  we  shall 
determine,  by  way  of  conclusion,  the  notion  of  divine  mis- 
sions. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  161 

The  Mission  of  the  Holy  Ghost  described.  —  The  divine 
life  starting  in  the  Father  and  the  Son  at  the  same  time 
extends  to  the  Holy  Ghost.  As  the  Greek  Fathers  put  it, 
the  Holy  Ghost  is  the  term,  the  limit  of  the  divine  life,  TAoq. 
But  this  life  stretches  out  in  time  and  space  to  touch  our 
souls  and  animate  them  with  the  life  of  the  Trinity.  And 
since  the  Holy  Ghost  is  the  term  of  the  divine  life,  it  must  be 
He  that  is  the  principle,  or  source,  of  the  new  life  in  our 
souls,  ::rj-pi,  or,  so  to  speak,  the  finger  of  God,  caxTuXoq  TOU 
Osoy. 

But  as  the  Son  is  so  intimately  related  to  the  Father,  so 
much  so  that  He  cannot  exist  without  the  Father,  so,  too,  the 
Holy  Ghost  is  so  intimately  related  to  the  Father  and  the 
Son  as  to  be  unable  to  exist  without  the  Father  and  the  Son. 
Hence,  through  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Father  and  the  Son  act 
in  our  souls.  Nevertheless,  the  creation  and  conservation  of 
the  life  of  grace,  in  the  soul  of  the  faithful,  is  still  an  act 
more  especially  attributable  to  the  Holy  Ghost  than  to  the 
other  two  persons,  in  this  sense  that  the  Holy  Ghost,  the 
term  of  the  divine  life, is  the  person  that  is  immediately  con- 
cerned as  the  principle  of  the  external  works  of  the  Trinity, 
and,  consequently,  the  immediate  principle  of  our  sanctifi- 
cation.  The  Holy  Ghost  who  proceeds  from  the  Father  and 
the  Son,  inasmuch  as  He  enters  the  soul  of  the  faithful  there 
to  create  and  preserve  grace  and  to  bestow  upon  the  soul 
other  gifts,  is  said  to  be  sent  by  the  Father  and  the  Son. 
We  call  this  action  the  mission  of  the  Holy  Ghost1. 

This  doctrine  of  the  Greek  Fathers  on  the  mission  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  was  taken  up  by  Petau,  and,  it  seems  to 
us,  somewhat  exaggerated.  He  represents  sanctification  by 
the  Holy  Ghost  as  a  function  so  peculiar  to  the  Holy  Ghost  as 
to  render  it  a  property2.  But  such  a  conclusion  is  contrary 


1.  Cf.  Th.  DB  Rtir.mw,  op.  cit.,  Elude  XXVI. 

2.  De  Trinitate,  1.  VIII,  c.  TI,  8  :  Jam  qux  dubitandi  causx  supra  expo- 
silx  sunt  a  nobis,  eas  explicare  nullus  est  labor.  Horum  primum  illud  fuit, 

T.  i.  11 


162  GOD. 

to  the  following1  principle  universally  accepted  in  theology  : 
«  All  the  operations  of  the  Trinity  ad  extra  are  common  1o 
the  three  persons1  ». 

The  Greek  Fathers,  it  seems  to  us,  understand  it  some- 
what differently.  They  maintain  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  more 
especially  the  principle  of  our  sanctification  because,  in  the 
revelation  that  has  been  given  to  us  of  the  mystery  of  God, 
the  Holy  Ghost  is  represented  as  the  term  of  the  divine  life, 
and  in  a  manner  turned  towards  men  and,  consequently,  the 
immediate  principle  of  all  ad  extra  works,  and  He  through 
whom  the  Father  and  the  Son  intervene.  In  the  work  of 
our  sanclification,  the  Father  and  the  Son  act  indeed,  but 
through  the  Holy  Ghost. 

The  Schoolmen  could  never  be  brought  to  acknowledge 
that  the  work  of  sanctification  of  souls  is  a  special  attribute 
of  the  Holy  Ghost.  For  them,  the  work  of  sanctifying  souls 
pertains  to  all  three  persons  equally.  It  is  quite  true,  they 
admit,  that  in  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  the  work  of  sanctifying 
souls  is  always  ascribed  to  the  Holy  Ghost ;  but  this  is  because 
of  the  relation  that  exists  between  that  office  of  life-giver 
and  the  personal,  or  distinctive  name  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  It 
is  a  question  of  attribution  resting  upon  mere  appropriation. 

The  Missions  of  the  Son  described.  —  Every  time,  then, 
that  the  Holy  Ghost  comes  into  our  souls  to  sanctify  them, 


quod  ceterx  persona;  perinde  commorari  dicuntur  in  sanctis,  ac  Spiritus 
ipse.  Quishoc  negat?  Bed  interest  quo  id  modo  fiat.  Non  enim  idem  valet  in 
cunctis.  Pater  ecce  atque  Spiritus  Sanctus  in  homine  Christo  non  minus 
manet  quam  Verbum;  seddissimilis  est  T^;  iwmipfcEO);  modus  ;  Verbum  enim 
prxter  communem  ilium  quern  cum  reliquis  eumdem  habet,  peculiar  em  alte- 
rum  obtinet,  ut  sit,  formae  instar,  divinum  vel  potius  Deum  facientis,  et  hunc 
Filium.  Quippe  non  absolute  et  infinite  Deus  est,  quod  ipsius  essentix 
oviffiwST)?  conjunctio  citra  personam  efficeret ;  sed  hie  Deus,  hoc  est  Filius  est, 
quod  sola  Filii  hypostasis,  tanquam  forma  prsestare  potest.  Sic  in  homine 
justo  tres  utique  personae  habitant.  Sed  solus  Spiritus  Sanctus  quasi  forma 
est  sanctificans,  et  adoptivum  reddens  sui  communicatione  filium. 

1.  Cf.  B.  FROGET,  De  I' Inhabitation  du  Saint-Esprlt  dans  les  dmesjusles, 
Appendice. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  163 

He  brings  there  the  Father  and  the  Son ;  or,  to  put  it  more 
concretely,  He  comes  as  the  envoy  of  the  Son  who,  in  turn,  is 
sent  by  the  Father  who  is  not  sent,  since  He  does  not  proceed 
from  any  other  person.  To  each  mission  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
then,  there  corresponds  a  parallel  mission  of  the  Son  and  a 
coming  of  the  Father. 

But  this  is  not  the  principal  mission  of  the  Son.  His 
mission  is  realised  especially  in  the  Incarnation.  In  this 
mystery,  the  Word,  sent  by  the  Father,  takes  into  Himself 
our  human  nature  hypostatically.  The  features  of  this 
mission  are  especially  remarkable.  It  is  a  hypostatic  mission 
viz.,  its  term  is  the  union  of  the  human  nature  with  the 
divine  in  the  hypostasis  of  the  Word.  It  is  also  called  a 
substantial  mission,  because  the  hypostasis  which  serves  as  a 
bond  of  union  between  the  two  natures  is  a  substantial 
property ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  other  missions  of 
the  Son  and  those  of  the  Holy  Ghost  are  accidental  missions. 

The  Divine  Missions  defined.  —  From  this  description 
of  the  mission  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  of  the  Son,  it  is  easy  to 
arrive  at  the  following  notion  of  divine  mission  :  Processio 
unius  personae  ab  alia,  quatenus  concipitur  relationem 
habere  ad  terminum  temporalem.  Hence  mission  comprises 
a  twofold  relation  :  the  one  of  the  person  sent  to  the  person 
or  the  two  persons  conjointly  sending;  and  the  other  of  the 
person  sent  to  the  creature  to  whom  He  is  sent. 

The  mission  may  be  either  visible  or  invisible,  which 
depends  upon  whether  or  not  it  is  accompanied  by  any 
exterior  sign.  The  mission  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the  soul 
which  it  sanctifies  is  invisible;  that  of  the  Holy  Ghost  coming 
down  upon  the  Apostles  on  Pentecost  is  visible.  This  visible 
mission  either  only  manifests  the  effect  of  grace  already 
produced,  and  then  it  is  said  to  be  purely  representative, 
as,  for  example,  the  appearance  of  the  Holy  Ghost  under 
the  form  of  a  dove  at  the  baptism  of  the  Savior;  or  the 
visible  mission  actually  produces  grace,  and  then  it  is  said 


164  GOD. 

to  be  both  representative  and  active.  And  again,  the 
mission  is  said  to  be  either  accidental  or  substantial,  i.  e., 
hypostatic,  according  to  whether  it  has  for  its  term  the 
purely  accidental  union  of  a  divine  person  with  man,  or  a 
hypostatic  union  of  this  same  divine  person. 

ARTICLE  II 
Some    Secondary  Questions  about  Persons  and  Missions. 

Object  and  Division  of  this  Article.  —  In  this  article  we 
shall  endeavor  to  see  what  is  meant  by  the  expressions  : 
notions  in  the  Trinity,  and  properties,  and  names,  of  the 
divine  persons. 

Notions  of  the  Divine  Persons.  —  By  notions  of  the 
divine  persons  we  mean  the  characteristics  peculiar  to  each 
person.  Thus  innascibility  and  paternity  are  the  two  notions 
of  the  Father. 

Filiation  is  the  note  of  the  Son.  Active  Spiration,  by 
which  the  Father  and  the  Son  put  forth  the  Holy  Ghost,  is  a 
note  common  to  both  Father  and  Son.  Passive  Spiration, 
by  which  the  Holy  Ghost  is  put  forth,  pertains  to  the  Holy 
Ghost.  There  are,  then,  five  notions.  Such  of  these  as 
constitute  person  are  called  notional  acts. 

Attributes  of  the  Divine  Persons.  — Besides  the  notions 
which  belong  to  each  individual  person,  there  are  attributes 
which  belong  to  all  three  of  them.  But  owing  to  the 
special  relation,  —  either  real  or  logical  —  they  bear  to 
one  person  in  particular,  they  are  attributed  to  that  person. 
For  example,  the  sanctification  of  souls  is  related  in  a  special 
manner  to  the  person  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  consequently  it  is 
appropriated  to  Him.  So  too,  the  works  of  Christ,  strictly 
divine,  and  hence  called  ©sc^pe^a-:,  that  is,  works  which 
are  beyond  the  scope  of  Christ's  merely  human  nature  and 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  165 

can  be  attributed  only  to  God,  such  as  the  miracles,  bear 
special  relation  to  the  person  of  the  Son;  and  they  are 
consequently  appropriated  to  Him.  For  the  same  reason, 
the  works  of  power,  such  as  the  Creation,  are  appropriated 
to  the  Father.  We  must  not  confuse  the  strictly  divine  oper- 
ations of  Christ  with  those  which  He  performed  as  God-man, 
called  ©savBpiy.ai,  such  as  His  Redemption  of  the  world  by 
the  death  on  the  Cross.  Such  operations  are  proper  to  the 
Incarnate  Word. 

Names  of  the  Divine  Persons.  —  The  divine  names 
either  designate  the  notions  of  the  persons,  and  then  they 
are  called  proper  names;  or  they  designate  only  attributes, 
and  then  they  are  called  appropriated  names. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    AGREEMENT   BETWEEN   FAITH   AND   REASON 
ON  THE  MYSTERY  OF  THE   MOST   HOLY  TRINITY. 

Objective  truth  is  reality  itself.  Subjective  truth  is, 
in  so  far  as  it  corresponds  to  it,  the  knowledge  of  this  reality. 

Now,  when  it  is  question  of  objective  truth  known 
through  revelation,  the  human  mind  may  be  in  one  of  two 
principal  states  : 

Either  the  truth  which  man  knows  by  revelation, 
is  a  truth  which,  on  the  one  hand,  he  would  have  been 
unable  to  discover  unaided,  but  which,  on  the  other  hand, 
once  it  is  revealed,  he  is  able  to  understand.  Such,  for 
example,  is  the  truth  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  to  be  ruled 
by  a  supreme  head,  the  vicar  of  Jesus  Christ.  These  truths 
are  called  mysteries  of  the  second  order. 

Or  the  truth  which  man  knows  by  revelation,  is  a  truth 
which  not  only  he  would  have  been  unable  to  discover,  but 
which  moreover,  when  once  revealed,  He  is  incapable  of 
understanding  fully.  Such,  for  example,  are  the  three  great 
mysteries  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity,  of  the  Incarnation,  and 
of  the  Redemption.  Such  are  called  mysteries  of  the  first 
order. 

In  speaking  of  the  agreement  between  faith  and  reason, 
we  have  in  mind  mysteries  of  the  first  order.  Agreement 
between  faith  and  reason  presupposes  that  the  mind  re- 
cognizes in  the  mystery  its  true  characteristics. 

Then,  there  are  three  demands  which  reason  can 
legitimately  make.  These  are  : 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  167 

1°  That  the  authority  upon  which  faith  in  the  mystery 
rests  be  well  established. 

2°  That  it  be  shown  that  the  mystery  is  not  opposed  to 
the  principles  of  reason  or  to  truths  duly  ascertained. 

3°  That  the  mystery  be  so  explained  as  not  to  leave  it 
completely  unintelligible. 

Is  it  possible  to  show  agreement  between  faith  and 
reason  on  the  mystery  of  the  most  holy  Trinity? 

The  Blessed  Trinity  a  Mystery  of  the  First  Order.  — 
«  We  accept  a  truth  of  faith  »,  said  Abelard1,  «  not  because 
God  has  taught  it,  but  because  our  reason  is  convinced.  » 
On  the  subject  of  the  blessed  Trinity,  he  taught  that  «  it  is 
a  truth  which  all  men  naturally  believe2  ».  Now,  to  put 
forth  mysteries  solely  in  the  name  of  reason  was  equivalent 
to  denying  them.  So,  St.  Bernard  wrote  to  Pope  Inno- 
cent II  :  «  Peter  Abelard  is  trying  to  destroy  the  merits  of 
Christian  faith  when  he  pretends  that  he  can,  by  human 
reason  alone,  know  all  that  God  is.  He  sweeps  the  heavens 
on  high  and  the  depths  below.  But,  for  him,  there  is 
nothing  hidden,  neither  in  the  depths  of  hell  nor  in  the 
high  heavens  3.  »  And  in  his  letter  to  the  bishops  and  the 
Roman  Cardinals,  he  says  :  «  The  faith  of  the  simple  is 
made  fun  of,  the  secrets  of  God  are  disgorged,  rash  disputes 
on  the  most  exalted  topics  are  stirred  up,  slurs  are  cast  upon 
the  Fathers  because  they  judged  it  best  to  let  certain 
questions  lie  quiet  rather  than  try  to  solve  them...  Thus 
human  reason  usurps  the  right  to  all  things  and  leaves 
nothing  to  faith.  It  sets  upon  what  is  beyond  it,  it  scruti- 
nizes what  it  could  not  well  bear  to  look  upon,  it  throws 
itself  recklessly  upon  things  divine,  it  violates  rather  than 


1.  Inlrod.  ad.  Theol.,  1.  II,  3;  P.  L.,  CLXXVIII  :  Ncc  quia  Dcus  id  dixe- 
rat  creditur,  sed  quia  hoc  sic  esse  convincitur,  recipilur. 

2.  Theol.  Christ.,  1.  I. 

3.  Epist.  cxci;  P.  L.,  CLXXXII,  357. 


168  GOD. 

discloses  sacred  things ;  the  mysteries  closed  and  sealed  from 
on  high,  it  does  not  open,  but  rends  them  asunder.  In  fine, 
everything  that  it  cannot  explain,  it  declares  nothing  and 
scorns  to  believe  '.  » 

Unlike  Hugh  of  St.  Victor,  who  succeeded  in  withdrawing 
himself  from  the  influence  of  Abelard  and  in  always  pre- 
serving orthodox  doctrine,  Richard  of  St.  Victor  underwent 
the  influence  of  the  rationalists  of  his  day.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  his  treatise  on  the  Trinity,  he  writes  :  «  The  object 
of  this  work  is  to  bring  to  bear  upon  questions  of  faith, 
so  far  as  God  will  grant  us,  reasons  not  only  probable,  but 
even  necessary2  ».  And  further  on  :  «  Thus  »,  he  says, 
«  we  have  proved  the  plurality  of  the  divine  persons  by 
reasons  so  clear  that  it  seems  one  must  be  insane  to  contradict 
a  demonstration  so  evident3  ». 

This  doctrine  was  taken  up  again  and  intensified  by 
Raymond  Lully,  at  the  end  of  the  Xlllth  century,  and  by 
Gunther  in  the  XlXth.  According  to  the  latter,  reason  can, 
and  will  in  the  future,  explain  all  our  dogmas.  Hence, 
there  are  no  absolute  mysteries;  for,  under  the  pressure  of 
reason,  which  is  going  forward  by  leaps  and  bounds  every 
day,  humanity  will  increase  continually  in  the  understanding 
of  its  faith  until  it  has  mastered  it  in  all  its  details.  Aiming 
particularly  at  this  error,  the  Vatican  council  declared  that 
the  principal  mysteries  of  faith  can  never  be  understood 
or  proved  by  reason  alone,  no  matter  how  fully  developed 
it  may  be,  since  they  are  essentially  obscure  4. 

Without  going  so  far  as  his  precursors,  Rosmini  con- 
tended that  the  existence  of  the  mystery  of  the  Trinity,  once 


1.  Epist.  CLXXXVIII. 

2.  De  Trinitate,  I.  I,  c.  iv;  P.  L.,  CXCVI. 

3.  Ibid.,  1.  HI,  c.  v. 

4.  DENz.,1796  :  Divlna  enim  mysteria  suaptenatura  intellectum  creatum 
sic  excedunt,  ut  eliam  revelatione  tradila   et  fide  suscepla  ipsius  tamen 
fidei  velamine  contecta  et  quadam  quasi  caligine  obvoluta  maneant,  quam- 
diu  in  hac  mortali  vita  peregrinamur  a  Domino. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  169 

revealed,  was  susceptible  of  being  demonstrated  by  reason, 
by  negative  and  indirect  argument,  it  is  true,  yet  in  such  a 
way  as  to  entitle  it  to  be  numbered  among  scientific  truths. 
This  opinion  was  condemned  by  the  decree  of  December 
14th,  1887  i. 

From  the  exposition  of  these  errors  and  the  condem- 
nations launched  against  them,  it  is  clear  that  it  would  be 
contrary  to  faith  to  maintain  that  mysteries  of  the  first  order, 
and  especially  the  mystery  of  the  Blessed  Trinity,  can  be 
known  and  demonstrated  by  reason  alone. 

This  doctrine  has,  moreover,  the  sanction  of  Tradition. 

As  early  as  the  second  century,  St.  Irenaeus  wrote  :  «  The 
generation  of  the  Son  no  one  knows  except  the  Father  who 
begets  Him  and  the  Son  who  is  begotten.  And,  since  this 
generation  is  unspeakable,  one  cannot  be  in  full  possession 
of  his  reason  to  undertake  to  explain  2  ».  St.  Gregory  Na- 
zianzene  writes,  in  one  of  his  discourses  :  «  You  know  that 
there  is  generation  in  God?  Be  not  curious  to  know  the 
«  how  »  of  the  thing.  You  know  that  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeds 
from  the  Father?  Do  not  tire  yourself  out  trying  to  learn 
the  «  how  »  of  it.  If  you  do  not  really  know  your  own  self, 
if  you  cannot  understand  the  things  attested  to  by  your 
senses,  how  can  you  expect  to  know  exactly  God,  to  know 
what  He  is,  and  how  great  He  is?  What  folly 3 !  »  St.  Cyril 
of  Jerusalem  is  no  less  explicit  in  recognizing  man's  limit- 
ations on  this  score.  «  Take  it  upon  faith  »,  he  says,  «  that 
God  has  a  Son,  and  do  not  worry  yourself  about  how  this 
can  be.  For,  in  vain  will  you  seek ;  you  will  never  know ! 


1.  DENZ.,  1915  :  Revelalo  mysterio  SS.  Trinitatis,  potest  ipsius  exisientia 
demonstrari  argumentis  mere  speculativis,  negatives  quidem  et  indireclis, 
hujus  modi  tamen  ut  per  ipsa  veritas  ilia  ad  philosophicas  disciplinas 
revocelur,  atque  fiat  proposilio  scientifica  sicut  ceterx  :  si  enim  ipsa  nega- 
retur,  doctrina  theosophica  purx  rationis  non  modo  incompleta  mancret,  scd 
ctium  omni  ex  parte  absurditatibus  scatens  annihilaretur. 

1.  Exr.,  \.  IF,  xxviii,  6. 

3.  Or.  XX,  11;  P.  G.,  XXXV,  178. 


170  GOD. 

Tell  me  first  what  is  He  who  engenders  and  then  you  can 
tell  me  what  is  He  whom  He  engendered.  If  you  cannot 
understand  the  nature  of  Him  who  begets,  do  not  wear 
yourself  out  scrutinizing  the  mode  of  this  generation.  It 
should  be  enough  for  your  piety  to  know  that  God  has, 
by  nature,  an  only  Son,  the  only  begotten  one  1  ».  Let  us 
see,  too,  what  is  said  on  this  question  by  St.  Hilary  of  Poitiers, 
who  shared,  with  St.  Athanasius,  the  honor  of  fighting 
Arianism  and  suffering  for  his  faith  :  c  The  generation  of  the 
Son  is  the  secret  of  the  Father  and  the  Son.  If  there  be  any 
one  who  blames  the  weakness  of  his  intellect  for  his  inabili- 
ty to  understand  this  mystery,  though  he  can  understand 
the  individual  words,  Father  and  Son,  he  will  feel  only  the 
more  afflicted  to  learn  that  I,  too,  am  laboring  under  the 
same  difficulty.  Truly,  I  neither  know,  nor  do  I  inquire, 
but,  nevertheless,  I  console  myself;  for  even  the  archangels 
are  ignorant,  the  angels  have  not  heard,  the  prophets  have 
not  understood,  the  apostles  did  not  question,  the  Son  him- 
self has  not  said  a  word  about  this  matter.  Stop,  then,  your 
complaining  2  ».  Shortly  before,,  the  holy  Doctor  said  : 
«  It  is  the  wickedness  of  heretics  and  blasphemers  that 
compels  us  to  do  things  that  are  forbidden,  to  climb  inac- 
cessible peaks,  and  to  discuss  ineffable  subjects.  Faith  alone 
ought  to  be  enough  to  lead  us  to  do  what  is  prescribed,  that 
is,  to  adore  the  Father,  and  likewise,  to  venerate  the  Son, 
and  to  fill  our  souls  with  the  Holy  Ghost.  But,  alas,  we  are 
compelled  to  apply  our  humble  language  to  mysteries  that 
are  beyond  all  tongues.  Owing  to  the  fault  of  others,  we 
ourselves  are  led  into  the  pitfall  of  exposing  to  the  hazard 
of  human  speech  mysteries  that  should  have  been  concealed 
within  the  religion  of  our  hearts  3  ».  Declarations  such  as 
these  are  to  be  found  in  the  works  of  nearly  all  the  Fathers. 
St.  Thomas,  then,  summarized  well  the  opinions  of  Tradition 

1.  Cat.  XI,  19;  P.  G.,  XXXIII,  713-716. 

2.  De  Trinitaie,  1.  II,  9;  P.  L.,  X,  58. 

3.  Ibid.,  2. 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  171 

when  he  wrote  :  «  It  is  impossible  to  arrive  at  the  know- 
ledge of  the  Trinity  of  divine  persons  by  means  of  our 
unaided  reason.  He  that  endeavors  to  prove  the  trinity  of 
persons  by  reason  alone,  sins  against  faith  in  a  twofold  manner : 
first,  by  lowering  the  dignity  of  its  object,  since  it  is  clearly 
seen  that  it  is  grappling  with  invisible  realities  far  beyond 
the  scope  of  reason;  and,  secondly,  by  hindering  its  expan- 
sion. To  try  to  establish  the  truths  of  faith  by  arguments 
that  are  not  conclusive  is  but  to  expose  these  truths  to  the 
raillery  of  infidels.  For,  they  will,  of  course,  think  that 
such  are  the  reasons  for  our  belief.  Truths  of  faith  should 
never  be  proved  but  by  the  argument  of  authority,  —  at 
any  rate,  when  it  is  question  of  those  who  recognize  the 
principle  of  authority;  and,  as  for  the  others,  it  is  enough 
to  show7  that  these  truths  are  not  contrary  to  the  principles  of 
reason  or  to  duly  acquired  truths  '  ». 

Faith  in  mysteries  rests  upon  sound  authority.  —  All 
faith  rests  upon  the  authority  of  God,  who  reveals,  and  of 
His  Church,  which  proposes  the  doctrine  as  revealed  by  God. 
The  proof  of  this  authority  is  given  in  the  treatises  on  the 
True  Religion,  the  Church,  and  the  Sources  of  Theology. 
All  we  need  do  is  remember  that  the  authority  of  God  will 
not  be  brought  into  question  by  any  one  who  believes  in  the 
existence  of  a  personal  God.  The  proofs  for  the  authority 
of  the  Church  are  mainly  of  the  historical  order.  Faith  in 
this  authority  comes  practically  as  a  result  of  the  first  grace 
of  faith  which  is  given  together  with  the  presentation  of  the 
motives  of  credibility. 

Once  the  authority  of  the  Church  is  admitted,  all  that 
remains  is  to  seek,  in  Scripture  and  Tradition,  the  object  of 
faith.  This  is  work  of  a  historic  nature ;  but  it  should  be 
performed  under  the  guidance  of  the  Church  whose  teaching 
authority  is  proved  by  history. 

1.  Sum.  Ifieol.,  1",  q.  xxxn,"a.  1. 


172  GOD. 

The  Mystery  oithe  Most  Holy  Trinity  is  not  opposed  to  the 
principles  of  reason.  —  The  mystery  of  the  Blessed  Trinity, 
it  will  be  objected,  is  opposed  to  the  principle  of  identity. 
For  things  identical  to  one  and  the  same  thing  are 
identical  to  each  other.  But  the  three  divine  persons  are 
identical  to  one  and  the  same  thing,  viz.,  the  divine  sub- 
stance. Hence,  they  must  be  identical  to  each  other. 

Now,  it  will  be  urged,  such  is  not  the  mystery  of  the 
Trinity,  since,  in  the  Trinity,  the  three  persons,  though 
really  identical  to  one  and  the  same  divine  substance,  are, 
nevertheless,  really  distinct  from  one  another.  This  mystery 
is,  therefore,  contrary  to  the  principle  of  identity. 

To  answer  this  objection,  we  will  distinguish  the  minor 
of  the  first  argument.  It  is  true  that  the  three  divine  persons 
are  identical  to  one  and  the  same  substance,  in  this  sense 
that  they  have  but  one  and  the  same  divine  substance ;  yet 
they  are  virtually  distinct.  This  virtual  distinction  rests,  not 
solely  on  the  weakness  of  the  human  mind,  which,  in  its 
inability  to  grasp  a  subject  in  its  entirety,  takes  it  in  two  or 
three  phases;  but  it  rests  upon  the  infinite  perfection  of  the 
divine  substance.  The  substance  of  man  is  finite,  and  hence 
can  exist  in  but  a  single  subsistence,  or  hypostasis;  but  the 
divine  substance,  on  the  contrary,  is  infinite,  and  by  the 
very  reason  of  its  infinitude  is  capable  of  existing  in  three 
subsistences,  or  hypostases. 

Moreover,  we  must  remember  that  the  terms  and  ideas 
made  use  of  in  speaking  of  the  divine  reality,  though  chosen 
and  formulated  by  the  Spirit  of  revelation,  are  borrowed 
from  created  nature;  hence,  they  are  only  analogical. 
Their  unsatisfactory  and  imperfect  side  marks  their  human 
features;  but  they  have  other  features  which  allow  them  to 
be  reconciled  with  the  infinite  perfection  of  God  and  herein 
they  convey  the  mystery. 

The  mystery  of  the  Trinity  is  not  opposed  to  truths  duly 
acquired.  —  If  there  is  one  truth  in»  philosophy  better 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  173 

established  than  any  other,  it  is,  it  will  be  objected,  that  per- 
sonality, or  the  Ego,  can  be  nothing  but  consciousness,  that 
is,  that  act  of  reason  by  which  we  know  all  the  phenomena 
that  take  place  in  us  at  the  moment  they  happen.  This  act 
is  universal,  since  it  extends  to  all  phenomena  that  take 
place  in  us;  it  is  necessary,  since  without  it  we  would  be 
unaware  even  of  our  existence,  which  is  equivalent  to  saying 
that  we  would  not  exist;  it  is  the  central  act  to  which  ail 
operations  in  us  must  be  finally  referred;  hence,  it  is  the 
constituent  act  of  our  human  person. 

To  admit,  then,  of  three  persons  in  God  would  be  to 
admit  that  there  are  three  consciousnesses  in  Him.  But,  such  a 
conclusion  is  impossible.  It  would  be  opposed  to  philo- 
sophy as  well  as  to  theology. 

And  first,  to  philosophy.  In  truth,  consciousness  must, 
by  its  very  nature,  be  universal,  and  consequently  exclusive 
of  any  other  consciousness. 

Secondly,  to  theology.  For,  consciousness  is  the  very 
thing  that  constitutes  the  essence  of  God ,  at  least,  in  so  far  as  we 
know  Him.  To  say  that  there  are  in  Him  three  conscious- 
nesses, would  be  equal  to  saying  that  there  are  three 
essences,  and,  consequently,  three  gods. 

How  are  we  to  meet  this  difficulty? 

Rational  theology  recognizes  but  one  consciousness  in 
God,  and  yet  it  speaks  of  three  persons  in  Him.  This  very 
theology  declares  that  Christ  had  a  human  consciousness,  and 
yet  it  holds  that  there  was  no  human  person  in  Christ. 
Hence,  it  cannot  be  consciousness  that  constitutes  person,  at 
least  in  God. 

Moreover,  is  it  true  that  personality  consists  in  cons- 
ciousness? This  assertion  rests  upon  the  authority  of  Descar- 
tes, who  says  that  the  essence  of  the  soul  is  consciousness,  or 
thought.  But  it  has  always  been  much  questioned.  Now- 
adays, the  tendency  is  to  see  personality  not  in  the  con- 
sciousness, or  in  the  center  of  cognitive  activity,  but  beyond 
consciousness  in  a  center  of  activity  whence  proceeds  and 


174  GOD. 

whither  reverts  all  life  of  intellect  and  will.  This  is  not  a 
complete  return  to  the  old  doctrine  of  personality,  which  is 
the  one  we  hold.  Much  less  is  it  the  doctrine  of  Descartes. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  supposedly  duly  acquired  truth 
which  was  raised  as  an  objection  against  us  is  well  nigh  con- 
sidered erroneous. 

The  Mystery  of  the  Blessed  Trinity  is  not  entirely 
obscure.  —  The  mystery  of  the  Trinity  could  not,  as  we 
have  already  said,  be  arrived  at  by  the  unaided  reason.  And 
once  revealed,  reason  cannot  make  it  the  object  of  rational 
demonstration  :  reason  cannot  fathom  its  depths. 

But  does  this  mean  that  the  mystery  is  altogether  obs- 
cure? Not  at  all.  Cause  always  leaves  its  stamp  upon  the 
effect;  and  the  world,  the  work  of  the  three  divine  persons, 
retains  the  image  of  its  cause.  We  can,  then,  get  some  idea 
of  the  Trinity  from  the  marks  it  has  left  in  the  Creation.  These 
resemblances,  very  faint,  indeed,  are  called  natural  analogies. 

Besides  that,  the  Holy  Ghost  has  vouchsafed  to  give  us  a 
glimpse  of  this  mystery  through  revelation.  He  has  taught 
us  that  we  must  distinguish  God  the  Father,  God  the  Son, 
and  God  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  Son,  we  have  been  shown,  is 
the  Word  of  God ;  the  Holy  Ghost  is  always  spoken  of  by  some 
name  indicative  of  love.  This  view  of  the  mystery  rests  upon 
ideas  and  terms  borrowed  from  created  things,  and  is,  there- 
fore, analogical.  But  the  elements  that  make  it  up  were 
chosen  by  the  Holy  Ghost;  the  order  of  its  development  is  the 
effect  of  the  spirit  of  God.  And  besides,  it  is  the  closest  pos- 
sible analogy  to  God;  it  is  called  analogy  explicitly  revealed, 
essential  analogy,  and  fundamental  analogy. 

By  analyzing  the  data  of  revelation,  we  arrive  at  other 
analogies  the  nearer  to  God  in  proportion  as  they  cling  to 
revelation.  These  we  will  call  analogies  implicitly  revealed. 

In  this  wray  we  first  get  our  concept  that  the  second  per- 
son proceeds  from  the  first  by  way  of  real  generation,  and, 
consequently  by  the  communication  of  the  divine  substance, 


THE  MOST  HOLY  TRINITY.  175 

in  such  a  way  that  the  second  person  is  the  substantial  image 
of  the  first. 

We  see,  too,  that  the  third  person  proceeds  from  the 
Father  and  the  Son  as  from  a  single  principle,  and  we  under- 
stand, at  least  negatively,  that  this  mode  of  procession  is  not 
generation,  since  the  third  person  is  not  the  Son. 

Again,  we  see  that  the  unity  between  the  three  persons 
is  not  specific,  as  between  creatures,  but  numerical ;  and  that, 
consequently,  the  distinction  between  persons  is  not  one  of 
absolute  substance  but  of  relations,  as  expressed  by  the  names 
of  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost. 

In  Holy  Writ,  the  Son  is  called  the  Word  of  God ;  the 
Holy  Ghost  is  called  the  Love  of  the  Father  and  the  Son.  If 
we  try  to  study  the  procession  of  the  Word  and  the  proces- 
sion of  Love  by  comparing  these  with  the  immanent  opera- 
tions of  the  intellect  and  will  which  constitute  our  intellectual 
life,  we  shall  arrive  at  mixed  analogies,  the  most  exalted 
attainable  to  the  human  mind.  We  shall  be  enabled  to  see 
that  the  Word  results  from  the  knowledge  God  has  of  Himself 
from  all  eternity.  But  God  also  loves  Himself;  He  loves 
Himself  through  His  knowledge.  Love  springs  forth  at  once 
from  the  God  who  knows  Himself,  or  the  Father,  and  the  God 
who  is  known,  or  the  Word.  The  term  of  this  conjoint  love 
of  Father  and  Son  is  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Reason,  then,  working  upon  natural  analogies,  revealed 
analogies,  or  mixed  analogies,  finally  succeeds  in  building 
up  a  certain  intellectual  representation  of  the  mystery  of  the 
Trinitarian  life.  This  representation,  no  doubt,  cannot  serve 
to  demonstrate  the  existence  of  this  mystery;  nor  does  it 
permit  us  to  fathom  the  depths  of  divine  life.  Nevertheless, 
it  gives  us  a  certain  idea  of  the  mystery;  and  the  net  result 
is  that  we  find  that  the  mystery  is  not  contrary  to  reason 1. 


1.  Cf.  FR\NZEUN,  De  Deo  Trino,  thes.  XVIII  :  Sine  dubio  in  spirilu  crenlo 
potesl  reperiri  analogia  aliqua,  secundum  quam  supposila  ac  proposita 
revelalione  intelligamus  aliquatenus,  quid  sit  nobis  credendwn At  tan- 


176  GOD. 

turn  abest,  ut  ea  possit  esse  medium  demonstrations,  ut  analogia  ipsa  non- 
nisi  ex  revelations  reperiri  et  inMligi  possit ;  idque  supposita  etiam  revela- 
tionenon  ad  demonslrationem  existentix  Trinitatis,  sed  solum  ad  efforman 
dumaliquem  paulo  distinctiorem  conceptum  veritatis  creditx.  See  also  thes. 
XIX.  DE  REGNON  writes  :  «  Toutes  nos  theories  de  la  Trinite  sont  de  simples 
comparaisons  par  voies  d'analogie.  J'insiste  sur  cc  point  important,  parce  qu'il 
n'est  pas  toujours  assez  compris.  On  se  persuaderait  volontiers  par  exemple, 
que  la  th^orie  de  saint  Thomas,  fonde"e  sur  les  operations  de  1'intelligence  et  de 
volonte,  exprime  les  processions  divines,  imparfailement  sans  doute,  mais  dans 
leur  realite  formelle.  Ce  serait  une  erreur.  Malgre  toute  sa  beautd,  cette  theorie 
demeure  dans  1'ordro  des  analogies.  »  Etudes  sur  la  Sainte  Trinite,  Etude 
VIIJ,  ch.  v. 


PART  TWO 

THE  INCARNATE  WORD 


In  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  divine  nature  and  the  human 
nature,  not  intermingled,  not  changed,  are  hypostatically 
united  in  the  person  of  the  Word. 

This  formula  enunciates  fully  the  dogma  of  the  fact  of 
the  Incarnation.  We  shall  first  give  an  expos6  of  that  dogma. 

Then,  there  will  arise  the  question  as  to  what  is  the 
person  of  the  Word,  and  what  the  humanity  to  which  He  is 
united. 

In  the  first  part  of  our  Studies,  we  have  seen  sufficiently 
what  is  the  person  of  the  Word.  Hence,  we  shall  limit  our- 
selves now  to  a  study  of  the  humanity  of  the  Savior. 

Though  studying  a  dogma  so  full  of  mystery  as  the  fact 
of  the  Incarnation,  human  reason  does  not  forfeit  its  right  to 
look  for  the  causes. 

We  shall  consider  first,  then,  the  fact  of  the  Incarnation 
of  the  Word,  then  the  humanity  of  our  Savior,  and  finally, 
the  causes  of  the  Incarnation. 

Hence  the  division  into  three  chapters  : 

Chapter  I.  —  The  Fact  of  the  Incarnation. 
Chapter  II.  --  The  Humanity  of  our  Savior. 
Chapter  III.  —  The  Causes  of  the  Incarnation. 

T.  I.  12 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  FACT  OF  THE  INCARNATION  OF  THE  WORD. 

The  doctrine  of  the  fact  of  the  Incarnation  of  the  Word 
may  be  resolved  into  three  principal  propositions  : 

The  first,  a  substantial  statement  of  the  fact.  In  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  we  say,  the  divine  nature  and  the  human 
nature  are  hypostatically  united  in  the  person  of  the  Word. 

The  second,  the  analysis  of  this  fact.  This  shows  that 
the  two  natures  are  neither  intermingled  nor  changed. 

Since  this  is  the  case,  we  must  also  attribute  to  the 
Savior  a  twofold  will  and  a  twofold  operation.  This  is  the 
object  of  the  third  proposition. 

ARTICLE  I 

In  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  divine  nature  and  the  human 
nature  are  hypostatically  united  to  the  Word  of  God. 

Doctrine  of  the  Church.  —  Substance,  we  said  at  the 
beginning  of  these  Studies,  is  not  an  inert  principle  capable 
only  of  receiving  motion.  It  is  a  principle  which  tends  to  a 
determinate  end  and  directs  to  that  end  all  the  energies  with 
which  it  is  endowed  or  which  are  in  its  power.  Now,  from 
this  view-point,  we  should  not  call  it  substance,  but  nature. 
Nature  may,  then,  be  defined  :  Natura  est  substantia  quatenus 
est  principium  primum  sen  fundamental  passionum  et  ope- 
rationum. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  179 

But  we  say  that  in  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  there  are  two 
natures,  the  divine  and  the  human.     And  we  add  that  these 
wo  natures  are  united  hypostatically  in  the  hypostasis,  or 
person,  of  the  Word.     What  does  this  hypostatic  union  mean? 
Two  natures  can  he  united  together  either  accidentally 
or  substantially.     By  accidental  union  we  mean  the  union  of 
two  natures  which  tend  together  to  the  same  end,  each  pre- 
serving its  own  respective  form  of  activity;  as,  for  example, 
the  union  of  two  horses  hitched  to  the  same  wagon. 

If  the  two  natures  are  so  united  that  they  lose  their 
respective  forms  of  activity  and  take  on  a  form  of  activity 
differing  from  that  exercised  by  either  of  them  before  the 
union,  we  say  that  this  union  is  substantial;  as,  for  example, 
the  union  of  the  germ  with  the  ovule,  from  which  there 
results  an  entirely  new  nature. 

Now  substantial  union  may  take  place  in  three  ways  : 
by  conversion,  by  information,  or  by  hypostatic  union.  Yet, 
hypostatic  union,  as  we  shall  see,  is  a  substantial  union  in  a 
special  sense. 

Substantial  union  by  conversion,  or,  if  you  will,  by  assi- 
milation, is  that  which  we  have  just  mentioned.  The  dis- 
tinctive feature  of  this  union  is  that  the  two  natures  which 
combine  together  are  both  the  active  causes  of  the  union. 
And  furthermore,  the  new  form  of  activity  is  the  result  of 
the  transformation  of  the  two  preexistent  activities. 

Substantial  union  by  information  is  that  of  the  human 
soul,  which,  according  to  the  creationist  hypothesis,  is  a  spi- 
ritual principle  that  gets  hold  of  the  generative  elements,  the 
moment  they  are  united.  In  substantial  union  byconversion, 
the  activity  that  takes  place  is  but  the  transformation  of 
preexistent  activities;  whereas  in  the  case  of  substantial 
union  by  information,  the  new  activity  does  not  result  from 
preexistent  activities,  but  is  immediately  created  by  God. 
Moreover,  in  the  case  of  substantial  union  by  conversion,  the 
two  elements  that  enter  into  combination  are  the  active 
causes  of  the  union ;  whereas,  in  the  case  of  substantial  union 


180  GOD. 

by  information,  the  preexistent  elements  assimilated  in  the 
phenomenon  of  generation  are  passive,  —  their  only  func- 
tion is  to  receive  the  spiritual  soul. 

Hypostatic  union  is  neither  an  accidental  nor  a  substan- 
tial union,  understood  in  the  first  or  second  sense. 

It  consists  in  this  that  the  body  and  the  soul  of  Christ 
substantially  united  by  information  made  up  a  complete 
human  nature  which,  from  the  very  beginning,  was  deprived 
of  the  characteristic  element  of  human  personality,  because, 
from  that  very  moment,  it  was  appropriated  by  the  hypostasis 
or  the  person  of  the  Word,  assumpta  a  persona  Verbi.  From 
the  time  of  its  constitution,  the  human  nature  of  Christ  was 
endowed  with  no  other  personality  than  that  of  the  Word. 
If  person,  as  the  Thomists  would  have  it,  consists  in  the 
existence  of  the  substance,  the  human  substance  of  Christ 
existed  not  of  itself  but  by  virtue  of  the  existence  of  the  Word. 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  different  this  hypostatic  union  is 
from  the  substantial  union  by  information.  In  the  latter,  the 
substance  informed  and  the  soul  informing  it  are  comple- 
mentary of  each  other;  since  both  are  incomplete  substances. 
Moreover,  the  informing  soul  is  created  by  God  at  the  instant 
it  is  to  fulfil  its  function  of  information.  In  the  hypostatic 
union,  on  the  contrary,  the  human  nature  of  Christ,  deprived 
of  its  own  personality,  requires  the  person  of  the  Word;  but 
the  person  of  the  Word  does  not  require  human  nature. 
And  besides,  though  the  human  nature  of  Christ  was  created 
in  time,  the  person  of  the  Word  exists  from  all  eternity. 
Hence,  we  can  describe  hypostatic  union  by  saying  that  it 
consists  of  «  the  union  of  the  human  nature  to  the  person  of 
the  Word,  in  such  a  way  that  this  human  nature,  in  full 
possession  of  its  properties,  though  deprived  of  its  own  per- 
sonality, exists  only  by  virtue  of  the  existence  of  the  Word1  ». 


1.  The  following  is  the  formula  employed  by  the  Schoolmen  to  describe  the 
hypostalic  union  :  Unio  naturx  humanae  facto,  in  persona  seu  hypostasi  Verbi, 
ila  ut  ilia  natura  fiumana  omnibtis  proprietalibus  ad  hominem  spectantibus 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  181 

Such  —  seting  aside  however  the  notion  of  person 
involved  therein  —  was  the  doctrine  defined  in  451,  by 
the  Fathers  of  the  council  of  Chalcedon  :  «  We  are  unani- 
mous in  holding  that  there  is  one  and  the  same  (eva  xal  TOV 
ajTov)  Son,  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  complete  both  as  to  his 
humanity  and  his  divinity,  true  God  and  true  man,  composed 
of  a  body  and  a  rational  soul,  of  the  same  substance  as  his 
Father  in  his  divinity,  and  in  his  humanity,  of  the  same 
substance  as  ourselves,  like  us  in  all  things,  sin  alone  excepted, 
begotten  of  the  Father  before  all  time,  as  to  his  divinity, 
and  as  to  his  humanity,  afterwards  born  of  Mary  the  Virgin 
and  Mother  of  God,  for  us  and  our  salvation ;  one  and  the 
same  Christ,  the  Son,  Lord,  the  only  Begotten  in  two  natures 
(iva  xal  Tbv  autbv  ^pwcbv  uibv  y.'Jpiov  ^OVOYSVY}  ev  Suo  (p-jcrssiv),  not 
intermingled  (auuY/u'w?)?  not  changed  (aTpexTw;),  not  divisible 
(aotatpe'To)?),  not  separable  (a/u>p(<jTUK) ;  for  the  diH'erence  of 
the  two  natures  is  in  no  way  compromised  by  their  union, 
but  the  attributes  of  each  are  preserved  and  subsist  in  one 
and  the  same  person  and  hypostasis.  We  do  not  confess,  in 
fact  (a  son),  divided  and  rent  asunder  into  two  persons,  but 
one  and  the  same  Son,  the  only  begotten  Son,  God  the  Logos, 
Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  was  foretold  by  the  Prophets, 
who  revealed  himself  to  us,  and  who  is  represented  to  us  in 
the  Creed  of  the  Fathers1  ». 


ornata,  humand  tamen  personalitate  destituta,  ex  nulla  alia  personalitate 
exislat  nisi  ex  persona  sen  hypostasi  Verbi. 

1.  DEW:.,  148.  The  formula  of  Chalcedon  is  equalled  as  to  precision  and 
clearness  by  none  except  that  of  the  Athanasian  Creed  :  Est  ergo  fides  recta,  ut 
credamus  et  confiteamur,  quia  Dominus  nosier  Jesus  Chrislua  Dei  Films, 
Dens  et  homo  est.  Deus  est  ex  subslanlia  Palris  ante  sxcula  genitus,  et 
hamo  est  ex  substanlia  matris  in  s.vculo  nalus  :  perfeclus  Deus,  perfectus 
homo,  ex  anima  rationali  et  humana  carne  subsistens,  xqualis  Patri  secun- 
ilum  divinitatem,  minor  Patre  secundum  humanitalem.  Qui  licet  Deus  sit 
et  homo,  non  duo  tamen,  sed  unusest  Christus,  unus  autem  non  conversionc 
Divinitatis  in  carnem,  sed  assumptione  humanitatis  in  Deum,  unus  omnino 
non  confusione  substanlix,  sed  unitale  personx.  Nam  sicut anima  rationales 
et  caro  unus  est  homo,  ita  Deus  et  homo  unus  est  Christus.  DKISZ.,  40.  This  last 
sentence  does  not  stale  that  the1  Word  is  united  totlic  human  nature  in  the 


182  GOD. 

Such  is  the  dogma  of  the  hypostatic  union.  Let  us  seek 
the  origin  of  this  doctrine  in  the  New  Testament  and  in  the 
Tradition  of  the  Fathers,  in  order  to  show  that  the  Church, 
in  proposing-  it  to  our  faith,  has  merely  defined  what  was 
given  in  Revelation.  Then  we  shall  give  an  exposition  of  the 
Theology  of  the  Middle  Ages,  whose  great  concern  was  to 
discover  the  manner  in  which  the  hypostatic  union  came 
about 

§1 

THE   NEW   TESTAMENT. 

General  Doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  of  the  Word.  — 
The  narrative  of  the  Annunciation,  found  at  the  beginning  of 
the  Gospel  according  to  St.  Matthew1,  and  in  the  Gospel 
according  to  St.  Luke2,  is  manifestly  a  revelation  of  the 
Incarnation  of  the  only  Son  of  God  the  Father.  The  same 
doctrine  is  implicitly  contained  in  all  the  texts  of  the  New 
Testament  which  relate  to  the  Divinity  of  Christ.  But  in 
the  prologue  to  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  and  in  the  second 
chapter  of  the  epistle  to  the  Philippians,  there  is  an  explicit 
exposition  of  it.  These  two  passages  not  only  contain  an 
exposition  of  the  fact  of  the  Incarnation,  but  they  also  indi- 
cate, though  in  a  somewhat  veiled  manner,  the  way  in  which 
this  fact  took  place,  viz.,  by  hypostatic  union.  Hence  the 
necessity  for  a  thorough  examination. 

Prologue  of  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  John.  —  The 
prologue  of  this  Gospel  sums  up  in  a  few  propositions  the 


way  as  the  soul  is  united  to  the  body ;  but  merely  that  in  both  instances,  there 
is  a  hypostatic  union,  union  in  one  and  the  same  subject,  in  one  and  the  same 
person. 

1.  MAT.,  i,  18-24. 

2.  LUKE,  i,  26-38. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  183 

entire  substance  of  the  Gospel.     It  is  usually  divided  into 
three  parts  : 

1 .  The  description  of  the  Word ; 

2.  The  birth  and  the  mission  of  St.  John  the  Baptist ; 

3.  The  Incarnation  of  the  Word  and  the  work  of  salvation. 
But  the  whole  of  this  doctrine  serves  as  framework  to 

and  a  light  upon  the  great  mystery  which  we  are  about  to 
study. 

The  Word  described.  -  This  description  is  found  at 
the  beginning  of  the  prologue  : 

1.  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word, 
And  the  Word  was  with  God, 
And  the  Word  was  God. 

2.  The  same  was  in  the  beginning  with  God. 

3.  All  things  were  made  by  him  : 
And  without  him  nothing  was  made 
That  which  was  made,  4.  in  him  was  life, 
And  the  life  was  the  light  of  men, 

5.    And  the  light  shineth  in  darkness, 
And  the  darkness  did  not  comprehend  it. 

In  this  description,  the  Word  is  first  considered  in  itself 
and  in  its  relation  to  God.  In  the  beginning,  that  is,  from 
all  eternity,  was  the  Word.  The  Word  was  in  God,  literally 
«  towards  »  God,  that  is  to  say,  in  very  active  relation  with 
God.  And  the  Word  was  God.  To  put  it  briefly,  the  Word 
is  God  of  God. 

After  this,  St.  John  treats  of  the  Word  in  its  relation 
to  the  world.  Everything  that  was  made,  was  made  by  the 
Word,  in  this  sense,  that  everything  that  God  created,  He 
created  through  the  Word. 

But  the  Word  of  God  is  not  only  the  intermediary  in 
creation.  At  once  Light  and  Life,  it  is  He  that  communicates 
life  and  light,  the  life  being  also  the  light.  After  creating 
man,  therefore,  God  gave  Him  also,  through  His  Word,  both 


184  GOD. 

life  and  light.  It  is  question  here  of  the  special  gifts  which 
God  granted  to  His  people  :  the  Law,  Revelation,  and  the 
divine  protection1. 

And  finally,  the  light  shineth  in  darkness.  In  other 
words,  the  Word  made  flesh  manifested  Himself  to  the  Jewish 
people  by  His  doctrine  and  His  miracles.  Bat  the  darkness 
did  not  comprehend  Him,  did  not  receive  Him.  That  is,  the 
greater  number  of  the  Jews,  hardened  in  sin,  remained  in- 
sensible to  this  manifestation. 

This  description,  as  we  can  see,  offers  a  comprehensive 
view  of  the  divine  Word,  who  appears  first  in  His  eternal 
preexistence,  then  in  His  relations  to  the  world.  The  latter, 
St.  John  sums  up  under  three  heads  :  His  creative  action, 
His  manifestations  in  the  Old  Testament  through  the  Law, 
through  Revelation,  and  through  the  special  helps  given 
the  Hebrews;  His  manifestation  in  the  New  Testament  through 
the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  and  through  His  miracles. 

Birth  and  Mission  of  St.  John  the  Baptist.  —  The  preceding 
description  serves  at  the  same  time  as  a  general  exordium  to 
the  Gospel.  This  exordium  is  followed  by  an  historical  pre- 
face which  takes  up  the  rest  of  the  prologue.  It  hasbeen  justly 
likened  to  the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy,  found  in  St.  Matthew 
and  St.  Luke.  The  plan,  it  has  been  pointed  out,  is  like  that 
of  St.  Luke,  who  draws  a  parallel  between  the  birth  and  the 
mission  of  St.  John  the  Baptist  and  that  of  Jesus2.  Following 


1.  Anexegetical  problem  is  raised  apropos  of  Ihe  last  words  of  ^  3  :     «  That 
was  made  ».    The  Vulgate  reads  :  Sine  ipso  factum  est  nihil  quod  factum  est. 
In  ipso  vita  erat,  whilst  the  majority  of  the  Fathers  read  :  Sine  ipso  factum 
est  nihil.  Quod  factum  est  in  ipso  vita  erat....    We  give  the  preference  to  the 
latter  and  translate  :  «That  which  was  made  was  life  in  him  ».    We  explain.    The 
y^  3-4  speak  of  the  Word  before  Ihe  Incarnation.    Now  that  which  was  made, 
viz.,  men  and  especially  the  Jewish  people,  had  life  and  light  in  the  Word,  that 
is  to  say,  they  received  through  the  Word  the  Law,  revelation,  a  very  special 
protection  from  God.     Christ  said  in  the  same  sense,  «  I  am  the  life...  every  one 
that  liveth...  in  me,  shall  not  die  for  ever  ».  Cf.  Jn.  n,  25-26. 

2.  TII.  CALMES,  L' Evany  He  selon  saint  Jean,  pp.  100-111. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  185 

is  the   account  of  the  birth   and  mission  of  St.   John   the 
Baptist : 

6.  There  was  a  man 
Sent  from  God, 
Whose  name  was  John. 

7 .  This  man  came  for  witness, 
To  give  testimony  of  the  light, 

That  all  men  might  believe  through  him. 

8.  He  was  not  the  light, 

But  was  to  give  testimony  of  the  light. 

9.  The  true  light, 

Which  enlighteneth  every  man 

Coming  into  the  world, 
10.     He  was  in  the  world, 

And  the  world  was  made  by  him, 

And  the  world  knew  him  not. 
H  .     He  came  unto  his  own, 

And  his  own  received  him  not. 

12.  But  as  many  as  received  him, 

He  gave  them  power  to  be  made  the  sons  of  God, 
To  them  that  believe  in  his  name, 

13.  Who  not  of  blood, 

Nor  of  the  will  of  the  flesh, 
Nor  of  the  will  of  man, 
But  of  God  are  born. 

There  was  a  man  sent  from  God,  whose  name  was  John. 
He  came  to  make  known  the  Word,  which  was  the  Life  and 
the  Light.  This  man  was  not  himself  the  Word.  His  whole 
mission  was  to  point  out  to  his  contemporaries,  with  his 
finger,  as  it  were,  the  Word  of  God.  Behold,  he  tells  them, 
him  whom  you  expect. 

In  fact,  while  he  was  commencing  his  mission  of  witness, 
and  telling  all  that  he  whom  they  awaited  was  in  their  midst, 
the  Word,  now  incarnate  for  some  years,  was  already  pre- 
paring to  manifest  Himself.  He  was  in  the  world,  that  world 
which  He  had  created,  the  world  which  knew  Him  not.  He 
manifested  Himself  to  the  Jewish  people,  with  whom  He  had 
fora  long  time  been  in  special  relations,  the  Jewish  people, 
His  own  people.  Yet  many  remained  perfectly  insensible 


186  GOD. 

to  his  manifestation.  All  that  believed  in  him,  all  —  in  other 
words  -  -  that  believed  that  He  was  the  Word  made  flesh, 
were  rewarded  :  they  became  the  children  of  God.  They 
became  the  children  of  God  through  a  generation  independent 
of  blood,  independent  of  the  llesh  and  carnal  passion,  inde- 
pendent of  the  human  will;  they  became  the  children  of 
God  by  a  spiritual  generation. 

The  Incarnation  of  the  Word  and  His  Work  of  Salvation.  — 
Following  the  account  of  the  birth  and  mission  of  John  the 
Baptist,  is  the  account  of  the  birth,  according  to  the  flesh, 
and  the  mission  of  the  Savior  : 

14.  And  the  Word  was  made  flesh, 
And  dwelt  among  us, 

And  we  saw  his  glory, 

The  glory  as  it  were  of  the  only  begotten  of  the  Father, 

Full  of  grace  and  truth. 

15 .  John  beareth  witness  of  him, 
And  crieth  out  saying  : 

This  was  he  of  whom  I  spoke  : 
He  that  shall  come  after  me, 
Is  preferred  before  me  : 
Because  he  was  before  me. 

16.  And  of  his  fulness 
We  have  all  received, 
And  grace  for  grace. 

17.  For  the  Law  was  given  by  Moses; 
Grace  and  truth  came  by  Jesus  Christ. 

18.  No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time  : 
The  only  begotten  Son 

Who  is  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father, 
He  hath  declared  him. 

The  Word  became  flesh,  that  is,  became  man,  according 
to  the  expression  of  St.  Justin  :  (jxpncxcirfielq  avOpwzo?  y£'YOV£vl 

He  dwelt  among  us,  full  of  grace  and  truth.  This  means 
the  fulness  of  divinity,  as  in  the  epistle  to  the  Colossians, 

1.  / Apol.,  xxxii. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  187 

where  St.  Paul  says  that  Christ  possesses  the  fulness  of  the 
divinity1,  in  which,  he  adds  in  the  epistle  to  the  Ephesians, 
the  faithful  are  to  participate2.  The  flesh,  far  from  being1  a 
veil  concealing1  His  divinity,  was  the  means  of  which  He 
made  use  to  make  it  accessible  to  mankind.  We  saw  His 
glory.  This  glory  belongs  to  Him  in  full  right,  since  He 
receives  it  as  a  son  receives  the  glory  of  his  father. 

After  telling  of  the  Incarnation  of  the  Word  and  making 
some  general  remarks  on  the  ministry  of  our  Savior,  St.  John 
enters  upon  a  very  precise  account  of  the  beginning  of  the 
preaching  of  the  Gospel.  For  the  first  time,  John  the  Baptist 
comes  forward  as  a  witness.  He  proclaims  that  Jesus  is  he 
of  whom  he  had  said  :  «  He  that  cometh  after  me  is  greater 
than  I  ».  «  And  »,  continues  the  precursor  —  or  perhaps 
the  evangelist  -  -  «  of  his  fulness  we  have  all  received  ». 
We  have  partaken  of  this  fulness  at  two  different  times  and 
under  two  different  forms  :  the  first  time  under  the  form  of 
the  Law  with  Moses;  and  the  second,  under  the  form  of 
grace  and  truth  with  Jesus  Christ.  The  law  has  been  abolis- 
hed ;  now  is  the  time  for  grace  and  truth,  that  is  to  say, 
for  the  superabundant  communication  of  the  divine  life.  So 
we  have  received  grace  for  grace. 

Furthermore,  no  man  has  ever  seen  God.  But  we,  in 
seeing  His  only  Son,  His  only  begotten,  that  is,  Him  that 
possesses  by  way  of  eternal  generation  the  fulness  of  the 
divine  life,  during  His  stay  in  our  midst  and  before  His 
return  to  the  bosom  of  His  Father,  we  have  known  Him. 

Theological  Synthesis.  —  The  preceding  commentary 
contains  all  the  elements  of  the  dogma  of  the  Incarnation. 
The  synthesis  is  easy.  The  eternal  Word  of  the  Father,  true 
God  of  true  God,  begotten  of  the  Father  from  all  eternity, 
became  man.  Now  on  the  one  hand,  He  became  truly  man; 


1.  Col.,  n,9. 

2.  Eph.,  ill,  19. 


188  GOD. 

for  having  become  man,  He  dwelt  amongst  us,  and  made 
it  easily  possible  for  us  to  ascertain  that  He  was  truly  man. 
And  on  the  other  hand,  in  becoming  man,  He  could  not 
cease,  and  in  fact  did  not  cease,  being  the  Word  of  God ;  for, 
though  we  saw  Him  as  man,  we  saw  Him  at  the  same  time 
full  of  grace  and  truth,  and  possessing,  in  other  words,  the 
fulness  of  divinity,  so  much  so,  that  in  seeing  Him,  we 
knew  God.  So  it  is  that  the  Word  of  God,  without  ceasing 
to  be  the  Word  of  God,  became  true  man.  How  this  fact 
took  place  can  be  known  only  by  an  induction  not  explicitly 
contained  in  the  text,  but  rigorously  required  by  the  thought 
which  it  contains.  Such  is  the  inference  :  «  The  Word  of 
God  took  on  a  human  nature  which,  while  possessing  all 
the  other  attributes  of  humanity,  was  deprived  of  personality, 
so  that  it  could  belong  only  to  the  Word  ».  Hence,  one  and 
the  same  divine  person  was  both  God  and  man  at  the  same 
time.  This  kind  of  union  is  called  hypostatic. 

Epistle  to  the  Philippians,  Chapter  II,  5-11.  -  -  The 
Church  at  Philippi  was  always  the  object  of  St.  Paul's  special 
love.  It  was  the  first  church  founded  by  him  in  Europe. 
Nowhere  had  the  Apostle  met  with  more  simplicity,  more 
docility,  more  love.  So,  when  he  wrote  to  the  Christians 
of  that  city,  during  the  time  of  his  captivity,  that  is,  during 
the  period  from  the  year  62  to  the  year  64,  he  seems  to  be 
in  no  way  concerned  about  doctrine  or  discipline.  He  gives 
personal  news,  he  exhorts,  encourages,  consoles,  and  freely 
opens  his  heart  to  them. 

Wishing,  however,  to  give  them  an  example  of  humility, 
he  exposes,  almost  casually,  one  might  think,  and  that  in 
remarkably  precise  terms,  the  entire  doctrine  of  the  Incar- 
nation. His  manner  adds  singularly  to  the  scope  and 
the  strength  of  his  words.  It  shows,  really,  that  this 
doctrine  forms  part  of  the  Apostolic  catechesis  and  belongs 
to  those  elementary  articles  of  which  no  Christian  could 
be  ignorant. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  189 

Christological  Text.  —  «  Let  this  mind  be  in  you,  which 
was  also  in  Christ  Jesus;  who,  being  in  the  condition  of 
God,  counted  it  not  a  prize  to  be  on  equality  with  God,  but 
emptied  himself,  taking  the  condition  of  a  servant,  becoming 
in  the  likeness  of  men ;  and  being  found  in  habit  as  a  man, 
he  humbled  himself,  becoming  obedient  unto  death,  even 
to  the  death  of  the  cross.  For  which  cause  God  hath  also 
highly  exalted  him,  and  hath  given  him  a  name  which  is 
above  all  names,  that  in  the  name  of  Jesus  every  knee  should 
bow,  of  those  that  are  in  heaven,  on  earth,  and  under  the 
earth  :  and  that  every  tongue  should  confess  that  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  is  in  the  glory  of  God  the  Father1.  » 

In  order  to  excite  the  Philippians  to  humility,  to  that 
generous  abnegation  which  makes  us  prefer  the  interest  of 
others  to  our  own,  St.  Paul  cites  the  example  of  our  Savior. 
Let  this  mind  be  in  you,  he  tells  them,  which  was  also  in 
Christ  Jesus.  When  he  wishes  to  stimulate  them  to  the 
renunciation  of  self,  the  Apostle  holds  up  to  them  the  fact 
of  the  Incarnation.  And  this  is  the  fact.  Christ,  being  in 
the  condition  of  God,  possessing  therefore  the  divine  nature, 
being  God2,  did  not  regard  equality  with  God  as  prey  or 


1.  Following  is  the  Greek  text,  punctuated  after  the  critical  remarks  of 
FR.  PRAT  (cf.  TMologie  de  saint  Paul,  p.  440-441,  note)  :  TOUTO  cppoveue  £•/  Cjuv 
o  xai  iv  Xpi<TTG>  'ITJTOU'  6;  Iv  (xop^  0eou  Cmapxwv  ofy  apTtayixciv  fjr,cTaTO  TO  etvai  laa. 
6ew,  aX/,a  lavcov  exevwaev  (xopqpr,v  8oO).ou  )>a6a>v,  iv  6ij.oiu>|j.aTi  d-.6pto7twv  Yevdjxevo? 
xai  <jyji\icni  eOpeOet;  u>;  avOpamoc'  £T<x7i£tva><T£v  £«VTOV  yevo^ievo;  OTITJ/OO;  (ie'xpi  OavaTou, 
OavaTou  8e  <jT<xupoC'  8to  xai  6  0e6;  avrov  (mspu^uxrev,  xai  exapiaaTO  aGtri)  TO  Svojxa 
TO  (iTtep  Tiav  ovoiia,  tva  4v  TO>  6v6[iaTt'lT)iroO  itav  Y°V1(J  xa(i^r)  ^Ttoupaviwv  xai  jinyet(iiv 
xai  xaTaywOovtwv,  xai  Ttaaay^wuaai^tAoJ.oyirjiYiTai  ott  xupjo^  'Irjaoy;  Xptercbc  ei; 


2.  In  St.  Paul's  phraseology,  while  ay$\t.y.  designates  sotnelbing  superficial, 
movable,  instable  (cf.  /  Cor.,  vii,  31;  —  Rom.,  in,  2;  —  H  Cor.,  xi,  13-14), 
[xop?T)  designates  something  deep  and  intimate  different  from,  but  inhering  to 
nature  (cf.  Rom.,  vm,  29;  —  Gal.,  iv,  19;  —  11  Cor.,  in,  18:  —  Phil.,  m,  10). 
This  meaningof  (xopfyi  is  the  only  one  which  fits  Phil.,  u,  0-7.  For  evidently  the 
phrase  iiopqrt  OEOU  is  in  correlation  to  |iop9^  8oO),ou  and  consequonlly  must  be 
explained  in  the  light  of  the  latter.  Now  a  servant's  nature  is  not  easily  con- 
ceivable, whilst  a  servant's  condition  or  state  exhibits  a  clear  meaning.  This 
servant's  condition  (pop?:?)  8oy).ou)  is  inhering  to  and  in  separable  from  a  human 


190  GOD. 

booty,  to  be  seized  upon  eagerly  for  fear  that  a  moment's 
abandonment  will  entail  its  loss1. 

What  is  this  equality  with  God?  Most  likely,  one  of 
honor.  This  seems,  indeed,  to  conform  best  to  the  iext.  For, 
it  is  certain,  that  in  the  expression  cu/  ap^av^bv  ^r^xio  TO 
sivai  taa  6ew,  t'cra  is  adverbial,  and  not  adjectival,  and  does 
not  signify  directly  «  to  be  equal  to  God  »,  but  «  to  be  on 
equality  \vith  him,  on  the  same  level  as  he  is  ». 

So,  Christ,  being  in  the  condition  of  God,  and  consequently 
possessing  the  divine  nature,  being  God,  did  not  seize  with 
avidity  upon  the  equality  of  honor  proper  to  his  condition. 
On  the  contrary,  he  emptied  himself.  It  is  quite  evident, 
if  we  follow  the  line  of  thought,  that  this  emptying  refers 
to  that  which  has  just  been  given,  as  an  object  to  which 
Christ  did  not  attach  himself  with  avidity,  that  is,  to  the 
equality  of  treatment2.  He  stripped  himself  of  this  equality 

nature;  it  is  possible  only  in  a  human  nature,  and  implies  it  always.  Therefore 
the  phrase  (xopqpri  6eou  must  mean  here  condition  of  God,  but  a  condition  which 
implies  divine  nature,  qvx  connotat  naturam  divinam  as  the  Schoolmen  would 
say.  Cf.  J.  H.  BEELEN,  Com.  in  epist.  ad  Phil. 

1.  The  Greek  word  ipuay^di;  may  be  active  or  passive;  in  other  words  >  it 
may  mean  robbery,  or  prey  or  booty  to  be  eagerly  seized  upon.    The  Latins  have 
taken  the  active  sense  and  translate  thus  :  «  Being  in  the  form  of  God,  he  thought 
it  not  robbery  to  be  equal  with  God  :  but  however,  he  emptied  himself  taking  the 
form  of  a  slave.  »    In  other  words,  though  the  Word  could  not  see  any  usurpation 
in  his  being  equal  to  God,  since  he  was  in  the  form  of  God,  consubstantial 
with  the  Father,  still  the  consciousness  of  his  grandeur  did  not  prevent  him  from 
emptying  himself.    Most  of  the  Greek  Fathers  have  preferred  the  passive  sense. 
The  latter  interpretation,  according  to  FR.  PRAT  (op.  cit.,  p.  444)  seems  preferable 
on  account  of  the  following  four  reasons.  —  1.  The  authority  of  the  Greek  Fathers 
who  are  better  judges  of  the  meaning  of  a  Greek  sentence;  2.  The  context  which 
implies  rather  a  lesson  of  humility  than  a  direct  affirmation  of  Christ's  dignity, 
3.  The  meaning  of  apnaYH-ov  rfl-eTaOai  as  given  by  the  lexicon ;  4.  The  grammatical 
rules  which  seem  to  be  better  kept  if  we  give  to  dXXa  the  sense  of  «  but  »  instead 
of  «  however  ».    See  J.  LABOURT,  Notes  d'exegese  sur  Philipp.,  II,  5-11,  Revue 
biblique,  juillet  1898.  Also  SAINT-PAUL,  Note  sur  Philip.,  II,  6.  Ibid.  oct.  1911, 
p.  550. 

2.  The  distinction  just  made  between  God's  condition  and  the  honor  due  to 
that  condition  is  perfectly  legitimate.    Do  we  not  see  often  persons  who  though 
not  giving  up  at  all  their  exalted  condition  refrain  from  exacting  the  honors  due 
to  their  rank? 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  191 

by  assuming  the  condition  of  a  servant,  that  is,  by  taking 
upon  himself  the  condition  of  man,  by  making  himself  man, 
like  other  men. 

Recognized  as  man  by  his  exterior,  that  is,  by  all  that 
appeared  in  him,  he  abased  himself  still  further  by  becoming 
obedient  even  unto  the  death  of  the  cross.  But  God  exalted 
him  without  measure,  by  raising  him  from  the  dead  and  de- 
claring him  hereby,  Lord  of  all  things,  that  is,  invested  with 
sovereign  power  in  heaven,  on  earth,  and  under  the  earth. 

Surely,  Christ  possessed  this  Lordship,  this  sovereign 
power,  even  before  his  Resurrection,  since,  though  man,  he 
was  also  God.  But  the  proclamation  had  not  yet  gone  out 
before  the  whole  world ;  it  was  issued  only  at  the  Resur- 
rection. 

Theological  Synthesis.  —  From  the  preceding  doctrine, 
it  is  easy  to  extract  the  whole  dogma  of  the  Incarnation. 
Christ,  possessing  the  divine  nature,  took  a  human  nature 
like  our  own.  This  is  again  shown  by  a  declaration  of  the 
Apostle.  Not  only,  says  he,  did  Christ  accept  the  humiliation 
of  the  Incarnation,  but  he  further  accepted  the  ignominy  of 
death  on  the  cross.  How  could  he,  though  God,  be  man, 
like  other  men  even  to  this  extent?  To  this  question  there 
is  but  one  answer,  which  is  hinted  at  in  the  text.  Though 
possessing  the  nature  of  God,  Christ  took  on  a  humannature, 
perfect  as  to  the  elements  that  make  up  this  nature,  but  depri- 
ved of  the  last  determination  which  would  have  rendered  it  a 
human  person.  And  this  he  did  in  order  that  it  should  have 
no  personality  other  than  that  of  the  Christ,  who  possessed 
the  divine  nature.  So,  one  and  the  same  divine  person  was 
both  God  and  man  at  the  same  time.  This  is  the  kind  of 
union  called  hypostatic  union. 

General  Conclusion.  —  We  see  from  this  that  St.  Paul's 
teaching  is  fundamentally  identical  with  that  of  St.  John. 
The  formula  «  Christ,  possessing  the  divine  nature,  took  a 


192  GOD. 

human  nature  like  ours  »,  is  equivalent  to  this  other  «  And 
the  Word  was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  amongst  us  ».  In  both, 
the  unity  of  the  God  man  is  affirmed  with  the  same  precision. 
This  requires  the  unity  of  person,  of  hypostasis.  In  other 
words,  it  is  necessary  that  the  human  nature,  deprived  of 
its  own  hypostasis,  be  taken,  assumed  by  the  hypostasis  of 
the  Word  to  the  extent  that  it  no  longer  belongs  to  itself  but 
only  to  the  hypostasis  of  the  Word. 

Let  us  add,  however,  that  though  this  conclusion  is  im- 
peratively demanded  by  the  texts  of  the  New  Testament,  it 
will  be  clearly  drawn  only  by  the  Fathers  of  the  Church. 


TRADITION   OF   THE    FATHERS. 

The  question  stated.  —  Our  adversaries  like  to  say 
that  the  dogma  of  the  hypostatic  union  is  but  the  continu- 
ation of  primitive  Docetism.  Towards  the  end  of  the  old  era, 
the  Neo-Platonic  school  of  Alexandria  sought  an  inter- 
mediary Logos,  in  order  to  explain  how  God  could  create  the 
world  of  matter,  an  evil  principle.  As  soon  as  Christianity 
was  made  known  to  them,  they  embraced  it  with  all  haste, 
for  they  saw  in  its  Christ,  who  was  preached  to  them,  the 
intermediary  Logos  that  was  to  solve  the  problem.  But  the 
difficulty  was  only  pushed  further  back.  How  could  the 
Logos,  a  good  principle,  and  the  flesh,  a  principle  of  evil, 
exist  together  in  Christ?  They  had  recourse  to  the  following 
expedient.  The  Logos  was  said  to  have  taken  flesh  only  in 
appearance,  to  have  become  man  only  in  appearance,  to  have 
suffered  and  died  only  in  appearance.  This  doctrine  received 
the  name  of  Docetism,  from  the  Greek  word  osxeiv,  to  appear. 
Docetism  was  but  one  of  the  many  aspects  of  Gnosticism. 

This  view  was  too  much  opposed  to  the  Gospel  to  have 
any  chance  of  success.  In  the  third  century,  an  effort  was 
made  to  show  that  the  Logos  had  taken  real  flesh,  only 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  193 

exempt  from  the  deep-seated  evil  inherent  to  all  flesh,  that 
is,  flesh  etherialized  like  that  possessed  by  the  souls  of  men 
before  being  embodied  through  some  fault  of  theirs,  or  like 
the  flesh  of  the  first  man,  Adam,  before  his  fall.  Little  by 
little,  the  influence  of  Docetism  shifted,  and  it  was  maintained 
that  Christ  had  taken  flesh  exempt  from  that  human  person- 
ality which  would  have  rendered  it  complete  humanity. 
Under  this  form,  we  are  told,  Docetism  prevailed  in  the 
Catholic  Church  and  has  come  down  to  our  own  day.  This, 
in  particular,  is  the  thesis  defended  by  Harnack  in  his  His- 
tory of  Dogma * . 

Upon  close  examination  of  documentary  evidence,  how- 
ever, one  has  to  admit  that  this  theory  results  from  the 
confusion  of  two  very  distinct  historical  questions.  The  first 
is  that  of  the  reality  of  the  body  of  Christ;  the  second,  that 
of  the  mode  of  union  between  the  Logos  and  the  flesh  of  man. 
The  first  of  these  was  treated  just  about  as  Harnack  says  it 
was,  and  it  supplied  the  groundwork  for  the  Docetic  heresy, 
which  the  Apologists,  especially  St.  Ignatius  of  Antioch2, 
after  the  Apostles  themselves,  particularly  St.  John3,  de- 
nounced and  condemned.  The  second  question  also  sprang 
up  beside  the  former,  from  the  very  beginning.  It  has  always 
been  answered,  at  first  only  implicitly,  but  gradually  more 
and  more  explicitly,  by  the  affirmation  of  the  hypostatic  union. 

The  Apostolic  Fathers.  —  The  doctrine  of  the  Incar- 
nation, as  contained  in  the  Epistle  of  St.  Barnabas,  is  quite 
remarkable.  How,  asks  the  author,  could  the  Lord,  who  is 
God,  condescend  to  undergo  death  at  the  hands  of  men? 
It  was  necessary  that  he  assume  a  body,  that  he  might,  in 
the  flesh,  conquer  death  and  give  proof  of  the  resurrection 
of  the  flesh,  and  expiate  the  sins  of  those  that  had  persecuted 

1.  Vol.  I,  256-306;  rol.  IV,  138-264. 

2.  Cf.  Ep.  ad  Ephes.  VIH,  xvm. 

3.  The  solemn  affirmation  of  the  Prologue  of  St.  John's  Gospel  :  Et  Verbum 
caro  factum  est,  seems  to  be  directed  against  Docetists. 

T.  i.  13 


194  GOD. 

his  prophets l.  The  point  of  view  taken  by  the  author  of  the 
epistle  of  Barnabas  is  precisely  the  one  taken  later  on  by 
the  Fathers  of  the  fifth  century,  in  their  defense  of  the  dogma 
of  the  hypostatic  union.  It  was  necessary,  said  they,  that 
Christ's  humanity  be  possessed  by  the  hypostasis  of  the  Word, 
that  theWord  might  truly  suffer  in  this  humanity,  and  that  in 
a  way  which,  by  its  infinite  value,  might  purify  the  world. 
The  doctrine  of  St.  Ignatius  of  Antioch  is  no  less  expres- 
sive. He  affirms,  in  as  satisfactory  a  manner  as  possible, 
that  Christ  is  truly  God  and  truly  man2,  and  that  there  is  in 
him  but  one  and  the  same  subject3  which  is  the  Word4. 

St.  Irenaeus.  —  In  order  to  show  that  Christ  must  not 
only  be  God  and  man,  but  must  be  God  and  man  at  the  same 
time,  St.  Irenaeus  expresses  himself  so  :  «  The  Lord  is 
most  holy  and  merciful,  and  he  loves  the  human  race. 
He  reconciled  man  with  God.  Had  the  enemy  of  man  not 
been  vanquished  by  a  man,  the  defeat  of  the  enemy  had  not 
been  appropriate;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  had  not  salvation 
been  procured  for  us  by  God,  our  possession  of  it  would  by 
no  means  have  been  assured.  Now,  had  man  not  been  uni- 
ted to  God,  he  could  not  have  shared  in  incorruptibility.  To 
reestablish  concord  and  friendship  between  God  and  man,  to 
place  man  near  God,  and  to  make  God  known  to  men,  there 
must  be  between  God  and  man  a  mediator  who  has  some- 
thing in  common  with  both.  How  could  we  have  shared  in 
the  adoption  of  sons,  had  not  the  Son  brought  us  into  com- 
munion with  him,  nor  the  Word  made  us  partakers  with 
him,  by  becoming  man?  For  this  has  he  traversed  the  ages 
and  brought  men  into  communion  with  God.  Hence,  they 
that  say  that  his  coming  is  but  a  vision  (the  Docetae),  that 


1.  BARN.,  v,  5-12. 

2.  Ad  Ephes.,  xvm. 

3.  Ad  Ephes.,  Tin. 

4.  Ad  Afagn.,  \m. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  195 

he  was  not  born  in  the  flesh ,  that  he  never  really  became 
man,  are  yet  under  the  ancient  curse,  are  yet  under  the 
patronage  of  sin,  and  for  them  death  has  not  yet  been  con- 
quered » l.  Hence,  according  to  St.  Irenaeus,  in  order  that  we 
might  obtain  salvation,  it  was  necessary  that  the  Word  of 
God,  even  while  remaining  the  Word  of  God,  take  our  hu- 
manity and  suffer  in  it.  The  Word  must  be  the  subject  to 
which  we  refer  the  humanity  and  its  sufferings.  This  union 
of  the  human  nature  with  the  person  of  the  Word  can  be 
none  other  than  the  hypostatic  union. 

Origen  and  Tertullian.  —  The  Apostolic  Fathers  and 
St.  Irenaeus  affirmed  the  hypostatic  union,  even  though  they 
did  not  use  the  term  nor  seek  to  develop  the  mystery.  The 
third  century,  however,  takes  us  further. 

Origen  viewed  the  dogma  of  the  union  of  the  Word 
with  flesh  in  this  light :  The  Logos  unites  himself  to  the  soul2, 
and  through  Ihe  soul  as  intermediary3,  to  a  perfect  and  beauti- 
ful body,  since  each  soul  has  the  body  which  it  deserves 
and  which  is  best  fitted  to  it.  According  to  him,  there  are 
two  stages,  as  it  were,  in  the  union  of  the  Word  with  the  flesh. 

About  this  time,  Tertullian,  with  far  greater  precision, 
said  that  if  the  Word  was  made  flesh,  it  was  owing  to  the  fact, 
that  a  human  nature,  perfect  as  to  the  gifts  which  make  it  a 
human  nature,  was  deprived  of  its  own  personality,  so  that 
it  might  exist  only  as  the  person  of  the  Son  of  God.  There 
is,  then,  in  Christ  only  one  person,  but  two  substances,  una 
persona,  duac  substantiae^.  This  is  the  definitive  formula 
of  the  dogma  of  the  hypostatic  union. 


1.  Haer.,  I.  in,  c.  xvm,  6-7. 

2.  Periarchon,  \.  u,  vi,  5-6. 

3.  Ibid.,  1.  u,  vi,  3. 

4.  Adv.  Prax.,  xxvn  :  Si  et  aposlohu  (Rom.i,  3)  deutraque  ejus  [Christi] 
subslantia  docet :  qui  factus  est,  inquit,  ex  semine  David,  hie  erit  homo  et 
filius  hominis  qui  definitus  est  filius  Deisecundum  spiritum.    Hie  erit  Deus 
et  sermo  Dei  filius.    Videmus  duplicem  statum  [seu  substantiam]  non  con- 
fusum,  sed  conjunclum  in  una  persona,  Deum  et  hominem  Jesum. 


196  GOD. 

Apollinarism.  -  -  The  doctrine  of  the  union  of  the  Word 
with  human  nature  was  taught  by  St.  Augustine  in  very 
precise  terms1.  In  the  West  the  controversy  on  the  hypo- 
static  union  was  not  very  evident;  but  in  the  East  the  ques- 
tion assumed  at  least  as  much  importance  as  that  of  Arian- 
ism. 

The  real  crisis,  however,  came  only  in  the  fifth  century. 
During  the  fourth  century,  matters  stood  thus  :  Apollinaris, 
bishop  of  Laodicea,  was,  about  360,  one  of  the  most  ardent 
adversaries  of  Arianism.  While  maintaining,  with  St.  Atha- 
nasius,  the  divinity  and  the  consubstantiality  of  the  Logos, 
he  was  preoccupied  also  with  safeguarding  the  unity  of  the 
Incarnate  Word.  After  the  council  of  Alexandria,  in  362, 
he  taught  openly  that  something  of  the  integrity  of  Christ's 
human  nature  must  be  sacrificed.  True,  it  need  not  be 
said,  as  Arius  would  have  it,  that  the  Logos  in  becoming 
incarnate  had  taken  but  a  body,  and  that  theLogos  himself  had 
assumed  the  function  of  soul;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  to 
grant  that  Christ's  humanity  possessed  the  vou?,  that  is,  the 
principle  of  higher  thought  and  of  free  will,  was  to  make 
of  him  an  independent  being,  incapable  of  physical  union 
with  the  Logos,  and  capable  of  only  a  moral  union,  such  as 
exists  among  friends.  But,  if  such  were  the  case,  the  Logos 
and  the  Christ  would  be  two  complete  beings,  two  persons, 
one  the  Son  of  God  by  nature,  the  other  the  son  by  adoption 
only.  Would  this  not  be  practically  equivalent  to  falling 
back  into  Arianism?  We  must  admit,  then,  went  on  Apolli- 
naris, that  Christ  had  a  human  body  and  a  human  soul,  the 
soul  being  the  principle  of  life  common  to  all  animate  beings; 
but  the  function  of  the  vcUi;,  of  the  faculty  of  reason  and  will, 
was  performed  by  the  nature  of  the  Son  of  God. 

Evidently  carried  away  by  his  desire  to  blend  in  one 
person  the  two  natures  in  Christ,  the  bishop  of  Laodicea 


1.  Sermo  CLXXXVJ,  1;  P.  L.  xxxvm,  999.  —  Epist.  cxxxvii,  9  :  P.  L.  xxxm, 
519. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  197 

restricted  the  human  nature  as  far  as  possible.  He  was 
denounced  as  a  heretic,  in  377,  by  St.  Epiphanius  and 
St.  Basil.  That  same  year  a  council  was  held  at  Rome,  under 
St.  Damasus.  Apollinarh  was  deposed  and  his  doctrine 
censured.  He  was  condemned  in  381,  by  the  ecumenical 
council  of  Constantinople1. 

Nestorianism.  —  The  Nestorians  first  appeared  as  a 
reactionary  party  against  Apollinavism.  Their  belief  was 
that  it  was  of  paramount  importance  to  maintain  the  perfec- 
tions of  Christ's  humanity. 

Theodore,  bishop  of  Mopsuestia,  taught,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  fifth  century,  that  if  Christ  is  true  God  and  true 
man,  we  must  admit  in  him  two  natures,  the  divine  and  the 
human,  and  two  hypostases ;  for  nature  and  hypostasis  are  one 
and  the  same  thing,  he  held.  At  least,  hyposlasis  is  a 
necessary  element  of  human  nature. 

Starting  with  this  principle,  he  explains  Christ's  cons- 
titution as  follows  :  The  Logos  was  joined  to  a  perfect  human 
nature,  hypostatic,  but  in  a  union  merely  moral,  not  physical. 
It  was  a  union  of  love  Ivwct?  xata  ^apiv  2. 

Is  there  no  difference  between  this  union  and  the  union 
which  exists  between  a  just  man  and  God?  This,  answered 
Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  is  the  error  of  Paul  of  Samosata, 
who  designates  the  union  between  the  Logos  and  an  hypo- 
static  human  nature  by  the  word  <rjvdbsia.  which  he  opposes 
to  the  terms  IM;I;,  uJyv-paaig,  indicating  that  this  is  a  union 
which  excludes  compenetration,  an  external,  an  accidental 
union.  But  it  is  definitive,  indestructible,  <r/wp'.7-:b<;  auva<psia. 
Again,  speaking  metaphorically,  he  says  that  Christ's  humani- 
ty, as  regards  the  Logos,  is  his  «  temple  »,  his  «  clothing  », 
his  «  organ  »,  vao;,  oly.o;,  tjjia-riov,  spyavsv,  whence,  to  express 


1.  DENZ.,  85. 

2.  Theodori  Mopsuesteni  fragmenta  dogmatica  ex  libris  de  Incarna- 
lione.  P.  G.,  LXVI,   971-982. 


198  GOD. 

the  union,  the  words  evoiy.yjsi;,  EV^USIC,  evepYaa  may  be 
used. 

But  tills  is  not  satisfactory  terminology.  The  question 
still  remains,  whether  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  established  a 
real  distinction  between  the  simple  union  of  sarictification 
and  the  hypostatic  union  of  the  Word  with  human  nature. 
He  declares  that  he  did  not  mean  to  identify  these  two  modes 
of  union;  but  we  have  to  accept  his  statement  without  being 
able  to  see  wherein  it  is  borne  out  in  his  works. 

The  Word  hypostatically  took  on  human  nature  from 
the  very  moment  of  conception ;  yet  Jesus  was  declared  to  be 
the  adopted  Son  of  God  only  on  the  day  of  his  baptism.  In 
explanation,  Theodore  would  say  that  from  that  day  on,  the 
Word  and  man  were  so  united  that,  as  seen  by  the  other 
two  divine  persons,  the  two  appeared  as  only  one. 

But  if  the  Word  was  united  hypostatically  to  humanity 
at  conception,  should  we  say  that  the  Blessed  Virgin  was 
av6pa>7uoToxo<;  or  OSOTOXO??  According  to  Theodore,  only  the 
former  of  these  appellations  is  correct;  the  latter,  however, 
could  be  used  in  a  certain  sense. 

Here  the  work  of  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  stops.  His 
views  were  attacked  during  his  own  lifetime,  but  no  one 
foresaw7  the  crisis  they  were  to  precipitate  in  the  Church. 
So  matters  stood  in  the  year  428  l.  That  year,  Nestorius  was 
made  bishop  of  Constantinople.  Either  because  his  views 
leaned  that  way,  or  because  of  his  aversion  for  the  Alexan- 
drian school  and  for  the  person  of  its  patriarch  Cyril,  Nesto- 
rius threw  himself  into  the  defense  of  the  doctrine  taught  by 
Theodore  of  Mopsuestia. 

He  adopted  all  his  theories,  laying  particular  stress  on 
certain  conclusions.  The  Incarnation ,  he  held ,  was  reducible 
to  a  simple  moral  union  between  the  eternal  Logos  and  a 


1.  Cfr.  TILLEMONT,  Memoires,  vol.  XII,  pp.  433-455.  —  P.  BATIFFOL,  Litte- 
rature  grecque,  pp.  301-309.  —  HARNACK,  History  of  Dogma,  vol.  IV,  pp.  165- 
172. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  199 

man.  So  close,  so  perfect  was  this  union,  at  least  from  the 
day  when  Jesus  was  baptized,  that  the  Word  and  the  man  to 
whom  he  was  united  appeared  —  whether  as  seen  by  the 
Father  and  the  Son,  or  by  the  faithful  who  owe  him  homage 
-  to  be  but  one.  Hence,  Nestorius  occasionally  states,  too, 
that  this  union  between  the  Word  and  a  perfect  humanity 
does  not  introduce  two  persons  in  Christ,  but  only  one. 
Yet,  when  viewed  in  a  certain  intrinsic  aspect,  the  Word  and 
the  man  are  really  two  hypostases. 

Since  such  is  the  case,  we  must  distinguish  carefully  the 
properties  that  belong  to  the  Logos  from  those  that  belong 
to  the  man  to  whom  the  Logos  is  united;  the  properties  of  the 
one  must  not  be  ascribed  to  the  other.  Hence,  according  to 
his  views,  we  should  not  say  that  the  Logos  suffered  and 
died  :  and  above  all,  —  and  on  this  Nestorius  insisted  most 
strongly  —  we  should  not  say  that  he  was  born  of  Mary. 
All  these  things  pertain  to  the  Christ.  Nor  can  we  say  that 
Mary  is  the  mother  of  God,  OSCTIXC?  :  she  is  merely  the  mother 
of  the  man  whom  the  Logos  anointed  by  his  love,  /purrstovw?. 
Nevertheless,  he  goes  on,  if  some  simple  minded  monk 
persists  in  using  the  expression  9soToy.c;.  I  shall  not  quarrel 
with  him ;  but  be  it  well  understood  that  in  so  speaking 
the  term  is  improperly  used,  and  let  it  not  be  taken  in  its 
strict  sense  '. 

Language  such  as  this  shows  the  true  import  of  the 
doctrine  of  Nestorius.  Evidently  we  cannot  say  that  Mary  is 
OECTO/.O?,  unless  the  Savior's  humanity  was  from  the  first 
deprived  of  its  own  hypostasis  and  belonged  entirely  to  the 


1.  Sermo  Vf,  n.  4  ;  P.  L.,  XLVIII,  787  :  Dixijam  saepius  si  quis  inter  vos 
simplicior,  sive  inter  quoscumque  alios  voce  hac  Oeoidxo;  gaudet,  apud  me 
nulla  est  de  voce  invidia,  tantum  ne  Virginem  facial  Deam.  To  Pope 
Celestine  be  wrote:  Ego  et  hanc  quidem  vocem  qux  est  HSOTOXO;,  nisi  secun- 
dum  Apollinaris  et  Arii  furorem  ad  confusionem  naturarum  proferalur 
rolenlibus  dicere  non  resisto.  Epist.  HI,  n.  2.  These  and  similar  fine  dis- 
tinctions found  in  the  Book  of  Heraclides  of  Damascus,  have  led  some  to  be- 
Here  —  quite  wrongly,  we  think  —  that  Nestorius  was  not  a  Neslorian. 


200  GOD. 

hypostasis  of  the  Word  alone.  In  such  a  case,  this  humanity, 
whether  considered  in  whole  or  in  part,  i.  e.,  in  its  proper- 
ties, can  and  should  be  attributed  to  the  Word  of  God.  But 
once  the  supposition  is  made,  that  this  humanity  has  its  own 
hypostasis,  it  must  be  regarded  as  an  independent  Self,  both 
in  whole  and  in  part.  It  would  then  be  attributable  to  the 
Word  in  its  totality  only,  and  then  in  an  improper  sense, 
just  as  we  identify  two  friends  with  each  other,  and  say 
that  they  are  one. 

The  Fight  against  Nestorianism.  —  As  early  as  the  year 
429,  St.  Cyril  of  Alexandria  attacked  the  doctrine  of  Nesto  - 
rius,  in  a  letter  addressed  to  the  monks  of  Egypt.  If  Christ's 
humanity,  says  he,  served  but  as  the  temple,  or  the  instru- 
ment, of  the  Divinity,  what  fundamental  difference  is  there 
between  Christ  and  Moses?  l  On  the  contrary,  we  hold, 
after  Athanasius  and  the  council  of  Nicaea,  that  Christ 's 
human  nature  had  no  personality  other  than  that  of  the 
Logos  2. 

Hence,  to  Christ  we  must  ascribe  a  human  nature  that 
preserved  its  integrity,  a  nature  that  had  all  the  properties 
of  human  nature.  With  us,  the  body  is,  strictly  speaking, 
the  only  part  that  death  can  affect;  yet  we  say  that  man  is 
mortal.  Surely  the  soul  does  not  die ;  yet  in  a  way  it 
partakes  in  the  sufferings  and  the  death  of  the  body.  So  it 
is  \vith  Christ  :  his  divinity  by  itself  cannot  die ;  but  the 
Logos  appropriates  a  human  nature  with  all  the  attributes 
peculiar  to  it.  Hence  can  we  say  that  he  underwent 
death  3. 

Since  there  was  in  Christ  but  one  and  the  same  ultimate 
subject,  the  Word,  it  is  to  this  Word  that  we  are  to  ascribe 
divinity ;  it  is  to  this  Word  also  that  we  are  to  ascribe  humani- 


1.  Epist.  I,  15 :  P.  G.,  LXXVII. 

2.  Ibid.,  17. 

3.  Ibid.,  17. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  201 

ty  in  whole  and  in  part  —  that  is,  with  all  the  properties 
it  comprises,  including  conception  and  birth,  as  well  as  the 
rest.  It  is  truly  the  Word  of  God  that,  in  his  humanity, 
was  conceived  by  Mary  and  was  born  of  her.  We  are  right, 
therefore,  in  saying  that,  according  to  the  flesh,  the  Blessed 
Virgin  was  the  mother  of  the  Word  of  God,  or  simply  the 
mother  of  God,  OSCTCXOC.  *. 

Cyril's  letter  reached  Constantinople  and  was  taken  up 
by  Nestorius,  who  launched  the  most  bitter  invectives  against 
his  colleague  at  Alexandria.  Thereupon  Cyril  wrote  to  him 
personally,  accusing  him  of  sowing  discord  in  the  Church. 
Things  have  come  to  such  a  pass,  said  Cyril,  that  some 
refuse  to  give  Christ  the  title  of  God,  and  call  him  simply 
the  instrument  of  God,  or  a  man  bearing  God  in  him 2. 

In  a  second  letter  upbraiding  Nestorius  for  his  disres- 
pectful conduct  towards  him,  St.  Cyril  closes  his  merited 
reproofs  with  a  remarkable  profession  of  faith.  «  The 
Logos  »,  he  says,  «  did  not  become  flesh  in  this  sense,  that 
the  nature  of  God  was  metamorphosed  or  changed  into  aap£ 
and  fy'j-/rt,  but  rather  in  this,  that  the  Word  united  to  himself 
hypostatically  a  aap^  animated  by  a  ^uyrj  Xoyi^,  and  thus 
became  man  in  an  indefinable  manner.  The  two  different 
natures  were  brought  together  and  were  made  a  perfect  unit 
(vpb(  evsTTjva  TYJV  aXr;6tvr(v  auva^Osiirai  <pussic.) ;  out  of  the  two 
natures  came  one  Christ,  one  Son ;  not  that  the  union  obliter- 
ated the  difference  between  the  two  natures,  but  rather 
that  it  constituted  one  Lord,  Jesus  and  Son,  by  the  indissoluble 
union  of  the  divinity  and  the  humanity  » .  Then  Cyril  explains 
the  meaning  of  the  expression  6eo7iy.cc.  «  It  does  not  mean  », 
says  he,  «  that  there  \vas  first  a  man  born  of  Mary  and  that 
the  Logos  then  came  down  upon  him ;  but  that  the  Logos 
took  human  nature  in  the  womb  of  Mary,  and  thus  became 
man.  He  suffered,  too;  that  is,  the  Logos,  who  in  himself 


1.  Ibid.,  7-8. 

2.  Epist.  II,  Ad  ^est.,  2C. 


202  GOD. 

could  undergo  no  suffering,  suffered  in  the  body  which  he 
took  *.  » 

Nestorius  answered  in  an  equally  dogmatic  letter  in 
which  he  accused  Cyril  of  ignorance  of  the  Nicene  Creed, 
and  added  that  it  should  not  be  said  «  God  was  born  and 
suffered,  or  Mary  is  the  Mother  of  God ;  because  this  smacks 
of  Paganism,  Apollinarism,  and  Arianism  2.  » 

The  two  patriarchs,  unable  to  come  to  any  agreement, 
had  recourse  to  Pope  Celestine  I.  In  the  year  430,  he  con- 
voked a  council  at  Rome.  Nestorius  was  there  declared  a 
heretic,  and  was  threatened  with  deposition  unless  he 
retracted  his  errors. 

Cyril,  too,  called  a  council  at  Alexandria,  and  submitted 
a  creed  containing  a  profession  of  faith  in  the  Trinity,  the 
hypostatic  union  of  humanity  to  the  Word,  and  the  divine 
maternity  of  Mary.  This  received  the  approbation  of  the 
council  and  was  followed  by  twelve  decrees  condemning 
the  principal  points  in  the  doctrine  of  Nestorius. 

In  order  to  show  that  he  held  himself  no  less  orthodox 
and  no  less  powerful  than  the  patriarch  of  Alexandria,  Nes- 
torius came  back  with  a  profession  of  faith  and  twelve 
decrees  against  the  doctrine  of  Cyril3. 

With  hopes  of  putting  an  end  to  a  conflict  that  threat- 
ened to  disrupt  the  Church,  Emperor  Theodosius  II  was 
urgently  requested  on  all  sides  to  call  a  general  council. 

The  Council  of  Ephesus.  —  The  council  was  convened 


1.  Epist.    IV,   Ad  Neslorium,   23,  25.     We  saw  above  that,  according  to 
Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  the  hypostatic  humanity  was  taken  by  the  Word  at  the 
moment  of  its  conception,   but  that  adoption  took  place  only  at  the  baptism. 
This  distinction  seems  to  have  escaped  Nestorius,  for  the  expression  of  his  views 
in  this  matter  amounts  to  this  unqualified  statement  :  «  The  Logos  came  down 
upon   the   Man-Christ,  who   was   born  of  Mary,   and   dwelt  in  him   as  in  a 
temple  ». 

2.  Epist.  V,  Ad  Cyrillum,  25,  28. 

3.  See  the  anathemas  of  Cyril  and  the  counter-anathemas  of  Nestorius  in 
HEFELE,  op.  cit.,  1.  IX. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  203 

at  Ephesus.  There  were  nigh  unto  two  hundred  bishops 
present,  and  Cyril  was  to  preside  over  the  assembly,  in  the 
name  of  Pope  Celestine  I.  Nestorius  had  been  urged  to 
attend,  but  he  refused.  The  opening  was  several  times 
deferred,  that  John  of  Antioch,  the  chief  advocate  of  Nesto- 
rius, might  arrive  in  time;  and  only  after  it  was  shown  that 
he  was  manifestly  in  bad  faith,  was  the  first  session  held, 
the  22d  of  June,  431. 

The  Nicene  Greed  and  Cyril's  second  letter  to  Nesto- 
rius were  read.  All  the  bishops  present  agreed  that  Cyril's 
letter  was  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  Nicene  Creed.  Then 
Nestorius'  answer  was  read;  upon  which  all  the  bishops 
declared  with  one  voice  :  «  Whoever  does  not  anathema- 
tize Nestorius,  should  himself  be  anathematized;  for  he  is 
anathematized  by  the  true  faith  and  by  the  holy  synod. 
All  in  communion  with  Nestorius  should  be  anathematized. 
We  all  anathematize  the  letter  and  the  doctrines  of  Nesto- 
rius, his  partisans,  and  likewise  his  impious  faith  and  his 
equally  impious  doctrine1.  » 

Then  were  read  the  letter  of  Pope  Celestine  and  the 
Roman  synod,  the  profession  of  faith  made  by  the  Alexan- 
drian synod,  and,  no  doubt,  the  twelve  anathemas  which 
were  to  be  approved2.  At  any  rate,  the  second  council  of 
Constantinople  (553)  considers  these  twelve  decrees  as  part 
of  the  acts  of  the  council  of  Ephesus3. 

From  that  time  the  doctrine  of  Nestorius  lay  under  of- 
ficial condemnation,  while  the  doctrine  of  St.  Cyril  stood 
officially  defined.  Yet,  as  we  shall  see,  there  was  so  much 
haggling  over  the  proceedings  of  the  council  of  Ephesus, 
that  the  council  of  Chalcedon,  in  451,  was  obliged  to  take 
up  again  the  doctrine  of  the  hypostatic  union  and  confirm 
it  anew.  It  is  usually  to  the  acts  of  the  latter  council 


t.  Cfr.  M\r»si,  vol.  IV,  pp.  1170-1478.  —  H\nuotIN,  vol.  1,  pp.  1387-1395. 

2.  TILI.CMOIST,  Memoires,  vol.  XIV,  p.  405. 

3.  MANSI,  vol.  IX,  p.  327.  —  DENZ.,  113-124. 


204  GOD. 

that  reference  is  made  for  the  authentic  definition    of  the 
dogma. 

The  Nestorian  Schism.  —  At  the  end  of  the  first  session, 
the  Fathers  in  council  judged  that,  because  of  his  impious 
doctrines,  «  Nestorius  ought  to  be  condemned  to  lose  his 
episcopal  dignity  and  priestly  communion  »  ;  so  they  passed 
against  him  a  decree  of  excommunication  and  deposition. 
But  far  from  submitting,  Nestorius  put  up  a  most  strenuous 
fight.  His  friend  John  of  Antioch  assembled  a  conventicle 
of  forty-three  bishops,  who  excommunicated  and  deposed 
Cyril  and  «  all  who  had  given  their  assent  to  his  doctrine  », 
that  is,  the  two  hundre  1  Fathers  of  the  orthodox  council. 
Then  St.  Cyril  and  the  Fathers  of  the  council  unanimously 
decreed  the  excommunication  and  deposition  of  John  of 
Antioch  and  all  his  adherents.  This  conflict  between  the 
two  opposing  synods  led  to  a  common  appeal  to  the  emperor, 
Theodosius  II.  His  first  step  was  to  approve  the  decisions 
of  both  assemblies.  Then,  once  informed  on  the  doctrine 
and  the  behavior  of  the  Nestorian  party,  he  pronounced 
decidedly  in  favor  of  St.  Cyril,  and  asked  that  patriarch  to 
name  the  new  bishop  of  Constantinople.  After  that  he 
declared  the  council  ended. 

Returning  to  Alexandria,  October  30,  431,  St.  Cyril 
at  once  set  about  to  reconcile  to  the  true  faith  John  of  An- 
tioch and  the  bishops  of  his  province.  For  three  years  he 
devoted  himself  to  this  task.  John  of  Antioch  finally  sub- 
mitted to  Cyril  a  profession  of  faith  resembling  closely  the 
doctrine  of  the  council  of  Ephesus1. 


I.  That  such  a  profession  of  faith  existed,  we  know  from  the  letters  that 
Cyril  wrote  later  on  to  John  of  Antioch,  and  from  a  letter  of  John's  to  Cyril. 
It  is  easy  to  ascertain  that  this  profession  of  faith,  except  for  the  beginning  and 
some  words  at  the  end,  is  identical  with  that  which  the  bishops  of  the  conven- 
ticle at  Ephesus  submitted  to  Theodosius  II,  for  the  purpose  of  winning  him 
over  to  the  cause  of  Nestorius.  Cf.  MANSI,  vol.  V,  p.  303.  —  HEFELE,  o/>.  cit.  I., 
IX,  p.  395. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  205 

This  Cyril  at  once  signed.  The  signal  for  peace  had 
been  given.  John  of  Antioch  now  acknowledged  the 
measures  that  had  been  passed  against  Nestorius. 

The  reconciliation  between  Cyril  and  John  of  Antioch 
did  not,  however,  bring  back  the  Nestorians  to  orthodoxy. 
They  set  up  a  separate  church  which,  after  many  vicissi- 
tudes, finally  succeeded,  principally  in  Persia,  where  it 
exists  to  our  own  times1. 

Adoptionism  in  the  Eighth  Century.  —  In  the  eighth 
century,  several  Spanish  bishops  maintained  a  doctrine  that 
has  often  been  likened  to  Nestorianism.  In  their  Creeds  they 
acknowledged  the  Son  of  God,  God,  begotten  of  the  Father 
from  all  eternity,  like  the  Father  and  consubstantial  with 
him,  Son  of  God  not  by  adoption  but  by  generation,  not 
by  grace  but  by  nature2.  But  they  held  too  that  the  Son  of 
God,  as  man,  is  only  the  adopted  son  of  God*. 

This  theory  of  adoption  has  always  appeared  vague  and 
confused.  Does  it  mean  that  the  only  Son  of  God  adopted 
in  time  a  man  born  of  Mary?  If  so,  this  is  Nestorianism. 
Or,  does  it  mean  that  the  Word  was  hypostatically  united 
to  a  humanity  conceived  in  the  womb  of  Mary,  which  He  had 
by  the  Holy  Ghost,  enriched  with  all  the  treasures  of  sancti- 
fying grace,  and  constituted  «  the  adopted  Son  of  God  »?  If 
such  be  the  case,  the  doctrine  is  inexact  especially  in  form ; 
and  dangerous  in  this,  that  it  may  lead  to  Nestorianism. 

The  direct  effect  of  sanctifying  grace  is  to  render  man 
like  God,  and  to  make  him  a  creature  having  his  own 
natural  hypostasis,  the  adopted  Son  of  God.  But  if  we  take 
a  human  nature  deprived  of  its  own  hypostasis  and  assumed 


1.  Cf.  J.  LABOUKT,  Le  christianisme  dans  I' empire  perse,  chap.  vi-x. 

2.  hi  \/.,  311  :  Confitemur  et  credimus  Deum  Dei  Filium  ante  omnia 
tempora  sine  inilio  ex  Patre  genitum,  coxternum  et  consubstantialem,  non 
adoptione  sed  genere. 

3.  DENZ.,  311  :  Confilemur  et  credimus  eum  factum  ex  muliere,  faclum 
sub  lege  non  genere  esse  Filium  Dei  sed  adoplione,  Hon  natura  sed  gratia. 


9Q6  GOD. 

by  the  hypostasis  of  the  Word,  this  nature  will  receive 
sanctifying  grace  in  abundance  without  acquiring,  howe- 
ver, the  title  of  adopted  Son  of  God ;  for  adoption  always 
presupposes  a  real  distinction  of  persons  between  the  one 
adopting  and  the  adopted.  Adoption  is  defined  :  Per- 
sonae  extraneae  in  filium  et  haeredem  gratuita  assumptio. 
Hence,  Adoptiouism,  whether  taken  in  a  strict  Nestorian 
sense  or  in  a  modified  sense,  is  to  be  rejected  absolutely. 
It  was  condemned  by  several  councils,  and  especially  by  the 
council  of  Frankfort  (79i)'. 

§  "I 

SCHOLASTIC    THEOLOGY. 

General  Doctrine.  —  All  Catholic  theologians,  of  what- 
ever school,  hold  that  the  Word  of  God  took  an  individual 
human  nature,  and  made  it  His  humanity  to  this  extent, 
that  it  no  longer  belonged  to  itself  but  belonged  entirely 
to  the  Word  of  God  and  wras  deprived  of  its  own  personal- 
ity. This  doctrine  is  binding,  for  it  contains  all  that  is 
essential  to  the  dogma  of  the  hypostatic  union. 

Where  controversy  starts  is  at  the  question  as  to  how 
this  hypostatic  union  came  about.  Evidently  the  union  must 
have  been  effected  without  even  the  slightest  intrinsic  change 
in  the  Word  itself.  But  was  the  humanity  modified?  If 
so,  in  what  did  this  modification  consist?  Solutions  vary, 
according  to  the  varying  notions  of  the  constitutive  element 
of  personality. 

Solution  of  Duns  Scotus.  —  According  to  this  Doctor, 
human  personality  is  naught  else  but  individual  substance 
considered  as  not  assumed  by  another  person. 

In  the  mystery   of  the  Incarnation,  the  Word  took    a 

1.  DE>Z.,  312-313. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  207 

humanity  endowed  with  all  the  intrinsic  elements  that  might 
be  found  in  any  person.  Yet  the  humanity  assumed  by  the 
Word  is  not  personal ;  but,  it  is  solely  owing  1o  the  fact  that 
it  was  assumed  by  the  Word1. 

The  objection  made  to  this  solution  is  that  it  does  not 
sufficiently  explain  the  hypostatic  union.  For  union  between 
two  substances  that  remain  otherwise  without  mixture  or  even 
the  possibility  of  mixture,  can  take  place  only  on  the  condi- 
tion that  they  both  partake  of  the  same  determining  principle 
and  that  this  principle  physically  embraces  each.  Otherwise 
there  could  be  only  an  accidental  or  a  moral  union.  In  the 
hypostatic  union,  the  only  principle  capable  of  embracing 
human  nature  so  as  to  unite  it  to  the  nature  of  God,  is  the 
person  of  the  Word.  But  how  could  this  individual  human 
nature  be  determined  if,  preserving  all  its  intrinsic  elements 
and  being  self-sufficient,  it  required  in  no  way  that  deter- 
mining principle''? 

1.  In  II rm  (list.  1,  q.  1,  n.  9,  and  n.  11,  ad  3um  —  dist.  VI,  q.  1,  a.  ad5um. 
This  opinion  has  always  been  questioned,  but  it  has  never  wanted  defenders. 
Nowdays  it  has  many  warm  supporters,  v.  g.,  HURTER,  De  Verbo  incarnalo,  thes. 
CLI,  and  C.  PESCH,  De  Verbo  incarnato,  prop.  IX. 

2.  Cf.  L.  BILLOT,  De   Verbo  incarnato,  thes.  VII,  p.  90  :  Ratio  unitatis  in 
negalione  divisionis  constituitur.  Omnis  autemnegalio  fundalur  in  positivo. 
Ergo  in  omni  unilate  oporlet  invenire  aliquid  posilivum  in  quo  fundelur 
indivisio.  Et  si  quidem  unilas  sit  unitas  simplicitatis,  positivum  illud  est 
ipsa  enlitas  simplicis.  Si  sit  unitas  compositionis,  oportet  quod  sit  aliquis 
actus  in   quo  plura  unita  communicant,  sicut  anima  et  corpus  qua;  sunt 
unum  per  se,  communicant  in  eodem  esse  simpliciler ;  sicut  subjeclum  et 
forma  accidenlalis  communicant  in  eodem  esse  secundum  quid,  et  pro  tanlo 
dicuntur  unum  per  accidens ;  sicut  lapides  in  acervo  communicant  in  eadem 
forma  acervi,  qua  ibi  nihil  aliud  est  quam  compositio  el  ordo.  Ex  his 
principiis  qua;  perspicua  sunt  satis,  sic  aryuo  :  Omnis  unitas  qux  ultimo 
explicatur  per  ipsam  indivisionem   ut  sic,  quin  detur  aliquid  positivum 
indivisionem  fundans,  est  unitas   chimaerica.    Atqui   in  dicta  sententia, 
unitas  hypostatica  ultimo  explicatur   per  ipsam  indivisionem  ut  sic,  et 
excluditur  omne  posilivum  quod  indivisionem  fundet.  Ergo  unitas  hyposta- 
tica quam  adslruit  ista  sentenlia,  non  est  unilas  vera,  sed  ficla.  Major 
constal  ex  diclis.  Minor  probalur,  nam  in  dicta  sententia  nulla  est  forma, 
nullus  actus  in  quo  humanitas  et  Verbum  communicant,  sed  ultima  ratio 
cur  sint  unum  in  subsistenlia,  esl  quia  indivisa  sunt,  et  ratio  cur  indivisa 
sunt,  eit  quia  divisa  non  sunt  ». 


208  GOD. 

Solution  of  Cajetan  and  of  Suarez.  —  According  to 
these  two  authors,  the  individual  humanity  of  Christ  was 
really  united  to  the  divine  Word,  because,  if  deprived  of  the 
constitutive  element  of  its  own  personality,  it  is  no  longer 
self-sufficient.  This  gap,  this  need,  this  exigency  was 
amply  satisfied  by  the  person  of  the  Word,  who  assumed 
the  individual  humanity  of  Christ. 

Cajetan  and  Suarez  agree  in  this,  that  the  hypostatic 
union  was  possible  only  if  the  individual  humanity  of  Christ 
lacked  the  constitutive  element  of  its  personality.  But  they 
differ  in  some  points.  Cajetan  holds  that  personality 
consists  in  a  substantial  mode,  intermediary  between  sub- 
stance and  existence,  and  demanding  an  existence  of  the 
same  nature  as  itself1.  Suarez  says  that  personality  consists 
in  a  substantial  mode  that  is  a  new  determination  added  to 
the  already  existent  substance2. 

Against  both  these  views  it  is  urged  that  this  so-called 
substantial  mode  is  merely  an  accident;  for  the  determi- 
nations of  a  substance  can  be  nothing  but  accidents,  unless 
we  speak  of  that  determination  wrhich  is  the  very  actual- 
ization of  substance  —  its  existence. 

Hence,  if  the  Word  is  united  to  a  substance  that  has 
been  merely  deprived  of  some  accident,  it  comes  about  that, 
by  amply  supplying  this  accident,  the  Word  is  united  to  a 
really  human  substance  —  a  substance  \vhich  is,  moreover, 
personal. 

Furthermore,  if  the  Word,  by  fulfilling  the  function 
of  an  accident,  is  united  to  a  substance  already  determined, 
one  of  two  things  must  be  true  :  either  the  substance  exists 
of  itself  at  the  time  when  the  union  takes  place;  or  it  is 
considered  —  logically,  at  least,  as  not  yet  existing.  In  the 
first  supposition,  the  union  that  takes  place  can  be  none  but 
an  accidental  union;  in  the  second,  it  is  hard  to  see  how 


1.  In  ///ara,  q.  iv,  a.  2, 

2.  De  Inc.,  disp.  Xf,  sect.  3. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  209 

any  union  can  take  place  at  all.  Gajetan,  who  h'jlds  the 
second  view,  says  that  the  Word  communicates  to  the 
human  substance  his  hypostasis  and  his  divine  existence,  and 
adds  that  the  union  takes  place  only  through  the  hypostasis. 
This  statement  complicates  exceedingly  the  mystery  of 
the  Incarnation.  Its  acceptance  makes  it  difficult  to  see 
that  the  union  takes  place  in  the  hypostasis.  One  is  inclined 
to  think  rather  that  it  took  place  in  the  existence.  But 
since,  by  hypothesis,  the  existence  belongs  to  the  divine 
nature,  the  union  no  longer  exists  in  the  hypostasis  but  in 
the  divine  nature1. 

Solution  of  St.  Thomas.  —  St.  Thomas,  it  would  appear, 
held  that  personality  consists  in  the  existence  of  rational 
substance,  inasmuch  as  this  existence  is  really  distinct  from 
the  substance.  For  him,  existence  is  the  last  actualization 
of  substance  :  Esse  est  ultimus  actus*2. 

Hence  he  explains  the  hypostatic  union  in  the  following 
way  :  the  individual  human  nature  of  Christ,  from  the  very 
first  moment  of  its  conception  in  Mary's  womb,  has  been 
deprived  of  its  own  existence,  and  caught  and  determined  by 
the  Word's  existence,  so  that  it  never  had  any  existence  but 
that  of  the  Word.  Thus  the  Word  was  made  flesh.  There 
has  been  in  Christ  but  one  existence  viz.,  that  of  the  Word3. 

This  view  lends  itself  admirably  to  the  explanation  of 
conciliar  formulae,  particularly  that  of  Chalcedon,  which 
says  that  one  and  the  same  substance  (st?  xal  6  aJTo?)  is  at 
once  God  and  man.  This  explains,  also,  how  the  union 
could  be  substantial,  that  is,  in  a  really  substantial  mode, 
without  any  mixture  or  confusion  between  the  two  substances, 
or  natures. 


1.  Cf.  L.  BILLOT,  loc.  cit.,  p.  91. 

2.  Sum.  theol.,  lir,  q.  xix,  a.  1,  ad  4um.  —  Quodlib.  IX,  a,  3,  ad  2um.  — 
De  Potentia,  q.  ix,  a.  4.  —  In  III  Sent.,  dist.  V,  q.  i,  a.  3. 

3.  Sent.,  I.  Ill,  dist.  VI,  q.  u,  a.  2;  q.  HI,  a.  2,  G;  q.  xvn,  a.  2.  —  Sum.  Iheol., 
T,  q.  xxix,  a.  2;  q.  LXXVI,  a.  1,  ad  5um.  Cf.  BILLOT,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  91-100. 

T.  i.  14 


210  GOD. 


ARTICLE    II 

In  Our  Lord  Jesus  Clirist,  the  Divine  Nature  and  the 
Human  Nature,  United  in  the  Same  Divine  Hypostasis, 
Exist  Without  Confusion  or  Transformation. 

Doctrine  of  the  Church.  —  Though  human  nature  could 
be  deprived  of  its  own  personality  so  as  to  have  no  other 
existence  but  that  in  the  personality  of  the  Word,  it  was 
further  necessary  —  despite  the  contentions  of  the  Docetae 
and  the  Apollinarists  —  that  it  remain  perfect  in  the  order 
of  perfections  constituting  human  nature,  and  capable  of 
performing  all  its  proper  operations.  Otherwise  the  In- 
carnation would  have  been  defective  :  for  the  Word  of  God 
became  man  that,  in  His  humanity  and  through  it,  He 
might  be  the  principle  of  operations  truly  human. 

The  functions  of  the  human  nature  in  Christ  are  well 
summed  up  when  we  say  that  this  nature  was  the  principle 
in  which  and  through  which  the  Incarnate  Word  accom- 
plished all  His  human  operations,  principium  quo  Verbum 
humane  operatur.  As  we  always  ascribe  action  not  to 
nature,  but  to  person,  as  its  ultimate  source,  so  it  follows 
that,  in  Christ,  the  hypostasis  of  the  Word  was  also  the 
ultimate  source  of  the  operations  of  this  human  nature, 
principium  quod  humane  operatur.  Hence,  all  the  Savior's 
works  were  at  once  human  and  divine,  theandric,  Osav8pi*a(: 
so  called  to  distinguish  them  from  those  of  His  operations 
which  were  solely  divine,  such  as  His  great  miracles,  —  in 
Greek  0eo::pezai,  —  also  accomplished  by  the  Savior '. 


1.  This  doctrine  has  been  very  clearly  stated  by  Cardinal  de  BERULLE,  in  his 
Discours  de  I'EstaC  et  des  Grandeurs  de  Jesus,  the  second  discourse.  «  Les 
actions  de  cette  humanite*  appartiennent  proprement  au  Verbe,  et  non  pas  a  elle. 
Car  le  Verbe  Eternel  comme  personne  substitute  au  droictde  la  Nature  humaine 
et  Personne  incree'e,  par  un  pouvoir  et  Amour  infiny  s'approprie  cette  Humanite, 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  211 

Hence  the  human  nature  of  the  Word  must  preserve 
its  completeness,  its  integrity,  to  this  extent,  that  it  remain 
a  human  activity  performing  all  its  intellectual,  moral,  and 
sensible  operations,  without  suffering-  that  permeation,  that 
interference  between  human  activity  and  divine  activity, 
which  would  result  in  confusion  between  them,  which 
would  transform  them  all  into  divine  activities,  divinize 
them. 

This  doctrine  was  defined  by  the  Council  of  Chalcedon 
(451),  when  it  declared  that  the  divine  nature  and  the  hu- 
man nature,  united  in  the  same  divine  hypostasis  (a 
remain  not  intermingled  (aauYyjTw?)nor  changed  (ai 

Such  is  the  dogma  of  our  Lord's  two  natures,  the 
human  and  the  divine.  We  shall  now  study  this  doctrine 
as  found  in  the  New  Testament  and  in  the  Tradition  of  the 
Fathers;  then  we  shall  give  the  Theology  of  the  School. 

The  New  Testament.  —  We  are  now  dealing  with  a 
doctrine  nowhere  explicitly  found  in  the  Scriptures  —  a 
fact  which  should  surprise  no  one.  The  dogma  of  the  two 
natures  is,  however,  implicitly  contained  in  the  acknowledg- 
ment of  a  Christ  that  is  true  God  and  true  man.  There 
can  be  no  difficulty  in  admitting  this. 

Tradition  of  the  Fathers,  from  the  Time  of  the  Apostles 
to  the  Council  of  Ephesus.  --  The  Greek  Fathers,  all  through 


I'uny  a  soy,  la  rend  sicnne,  repose  et  Labile  en  elle  comrne  en  sa  prop  re  nature, 
la  tire  hors  des  lirnites  dun  usage  commun  et  nature),  1'oint  et  la  consacre  de 
I'onction  de  sa  Divinite,  et  prend  droict  et  authority  sur  elle  et  sur  sea  actions; 
et  g£n6ralement  sur  tout  ce  qui  appartient  a  cette  bumanitg.  Car  tout  ce  qui  est 
en  Jisus-Clirist  est  fonde  en  1'hypostase  de  sa  divinite.  Et  le  Verbe  Eternel 
comme  suppost  et  suppost  divin  de  cette  nature  bumaine,  est  le  propri^taire  de 
ton  Irs  sos  actions  et  souffrances,  les  soulicnl,  les  relcve  et  les  deifie  en  sa  proprc 
personne,  en  soustenant,  relevant  et  deiflant  la  substance  de  cotle  liuinanite', 
par  le  rnoyen  de  laquelle  elles  adherent  a  la  Divinitl,  comme  par  un  lien 
commun  d'inhe~rence  hypostatique  ». 
1.  DI.N/..  148. 


212  GOD. 

this  long  period,  seem  to  have  been  but  little  preoccupied 
about  the  more  explicit  statement  of  the  dogma  of  the  two 
natures  in  Christ.  All  they  say  is  that  Christ  is  both  God 
and  man,  that  he  is  consubstantial  with  the  Father,  that 
in  him  there  is  but  one  person,  the  Word,  which  has  both 
a  divine  and  a  human  nature.  We  find  Didymus  the  Blind 
saying  that  in  Christ  the  humanity  and  the  divinity  remain 
without  mixture,  atps^-wi;,  aauYx^T(J>?  *•  St.  Athanasius2  and 
St.  John  Chrysostom3  use  similar  language. 

The  Fathers  of  the  Latin  Church,  prior  to  the  third 
century,  confine  themselves  to  vague  formulae.  Tertullian, 
on  the  other  hand,  gives  an  exposition  of  the  dogma  of  the 
two  natures4.  St.  Augustine  treats  the  question  with  re- 
markable clearness.  In  Jesus-Christ,  he  says,  the  Word 
and  the  man  are  united,  not  by  the  confusion  or  transform- 
ation of  natures,  but  by  hypostatic  union5,  so  perfect  that 
the  two  natures  are  united  in  the  one  person0. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  teachings  of  the  illustrious  bishop 
of  Hippo  are  as  explicit  as  can  be.  He  forestalls  the  Nesto- 
rian  and  the  Monophysite  heresies.  Later  on,  when  Pope 
Leo  the  Great  wishes  to  settle  the  questions  that  trouble  the 
Orient,  he  writes  a  long  letter  to  Flavian,  Patriarch  of  Cons- 


1.  De  Trinitate,  1.  Ill,  6,   13,  21;  P.  G.,  XXXIX.  Cf.  G.  BARDY,  Didyme 
I'Aveugle,  Paris,  1910. 

2.  Fragment.,  P.  G.,  XXIV,  1256,  1257, 

3.  In  Joan.,  homil.  XI,  2. 

4.  Adv.  Prax.y  c.  xxix;  P.  L.,  II,  194  :  Quamquam  cum  dux  substantial 
censeantur  in  Christo  Jesu,  divina  et  humana,  constet  autem  immortalem 
esse   divinam,   sicut   mortalem  qux  humana  sit,   apparet,  quatenus  eum 
mortuum  dicat,  id  est,  qua  carnem  et  hominem  et  filium  hominis,  non  qua 
spiritum  et  Sermonem  et  Dei  Filium. 

5.  Sermo  CLXXXVI,  1;  P.   L.,    XXXVIII,  999  :  Quia   omnipotens   erat 
[Verbum],  fieri  potuit,  manens  quod  erat...  quod  Verbum  caro  factum  est, 
non   Verbum  in    carnem  pereundo  cessit,  sed  caro  ad   Verbum,  ne  ipsa 
periret,  accessit...  Idem  Deus  qui  homo,  et  qui  Deus  idem  homo,  non  confu- 
sione  naturarum  sed  unitate  persona?. 

6.  Epist.  CXXXVII,  9;  P.  £.,  XXXIII,  519  :  In  unilate  personx  copulans 
utramque  natttram. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  2i3 

tantinople,  in  language  drawn  entirely  from  the  writings  of 
St.  Augustine.  This  is  the  letter  that  was  to  be  acclaimed 
by  the  Fathers  of  the  council  of  Chalcedon. 

After  the  Council  of  Ephesus.  —  During  the  years 
following  the  council  of  Ephesus,  St.  Cyril,  as  we  have  said, 
did  all  in  his  power  to  bring  about  reconciliation  with  the 
disafl'ected  bishops  of  the  province  of  Antioch,  who  had 
taken  sides  with  Nestorius.  In  the  year  433,  he  even 
accepted  the  Creed  presented  by  John  of  Antioch,  in  which 
the  teachings  of  the  council  of  Ephesus  were  given  in  a 
somewhat  attenuated  form.  For  this,  St.  Cyril  was  re- 
proached with  having  acknowledged  a  Nestorian  formula, 
and  accused  of  inconstancy  in  faith1. 

The  Church  teaches,  no  doubt,  that  the  human  nature 
of  Christ  is  not  personal  in  the  sense  that  it  possesses  its 
own  personality;  but  we  must  not  infer  from  this  that  this 
human  nature  is  not  endowed  with  its  own  activities,  and 
that  all  that  is  done  in  Christ  is  done  by  the  person  of  the 
Word.  On  the  contrary,  the  Church  teaches  that,  excepting 
those  operations  that  are  solely  divine,  that  is,  those  which 
require  the  intervention  of  God  (evspyst'ai  Bsoicps-juai),  such  as 
the  great  miracles,  all  the  other  operations  performed  by 
our  Savior  are  to  be  attributed  to  the  human  nature  of 
Christ  as  their  immediate  cause. 

Since,  however,  there  is  in  Christ  but  one  person,  that 
of  the  Word,  the  human  nature  and  all  its  operations  are 
to  be  attributed  to  it  as  to  the  ultimate  principle  of  action. 
This  is  the  doctrine  that  St.  Cyril  upheld  at  the  council  of 
Ephesus;  and  he  does  not  in  the  least  deserve  to  be  called 
an  Apollinarist  —  as  the  Nestorians  called  him  —  for  main- 
taining this  doctrine.  He  maintained  the  same  doctrine  after 


1.  This  charge,  first  made  by  certain  bishops  of  the  province  of  Alexandria, 
has  been  renewed  by  HARNACK.  Cf.  History  of  Dogma,  vol.  IV,  pp.  188-189. 


214  GOD. 

the  council  of  Ephesus ;  and  for  this,  he  does  not  deserve  the 
title  of  Nestorian. 

Nevertheless,  Cyril's  friendly  attitude  towards  the 
Antiochians  excited  the  displeasure  of  the  bishops  of  the 
province  of  Alexandria,  and  led  some  to  ascribe  to  him 
sympathy  with  the  Nestorians.  Hence,  when  St.  Cyril  died, 
in  the  year  434,  they  appointed  to  succeed  him  Dioscorus, 
who,  far  from  favoring  the  doctrine  of  the  dual  personality 
of  Christ,  had  rather  Apollinarist  tendencies,  in  this  respect 
that  he  restricted  as  far  as  possible  the  humanity  of  Christ. 

At  that  time,  the  archimandrite  Eutyches,  of  Constanti- 
nople, taught  that  the  Word,  through  the  Incarnation,  had 
absorbed  not  only  the  personality  of  Jesus  * ,  but  also  his  human 
nature ;  just  as  the  ocean  absorbs  the  waters  of  the  rivers 
that  flow  into  it.  Thus,  said  he,  there  is  in  Christ  but  one 
nature,  and  that  is  the  divine. 

Eutyches  was  condemned  by  the  patriarch  of  Constan- 
tinople, St.  Flavian.  The  decision  was  approved  by  Pope 
St.  Leo  the  Great,  who  took  occasion  to  send  to  Flavian  a 
masterly  exposition  of  the  Church's  faith  in  the  dogma  of 
the  two  natures.  This  letter  is  known  as  the  Epistula  dog- 
matica  adFlavianum*. 

By  doctrinal  tendency  and  above  all  by  rivalry  towards 
Flavian,  the  new  patriarch  of  Alexandria,  Dioscorus,  took 
sides  with  Eutyches.  Through  his  agency  a  council  was 
called  at  Ephesus  (449).  This  he  undertook  to  control  after 
his  own  fashion.  He  would  not  allow  the  legate  of  Pope 


1.  It  should  be  observed  that  this  author's  doctrine  was  partly  Nestorian ; 
for,  according  to  him,  Christ's  human  nature  was,  before  the  Incarnation,  com- 
plete throughout  but  for  personality. 

2.  DENZ.,  143  :  Salva  igitur  proprietate  utriusque  naturae  et  substantix 
et  in  unam  coeunte  personam,  suscepta  est  a  majestate  humilitas,  ab  xter. 
nitate  mortalitas,  et  ad  resolvendum  conditionis  nostrx  debitum,  nalura 
inviolabilis  naturae  estunita  passibili :  ut,  quod  nostris  remediis  congruebat, 
unus  atque  idem  mediator  Dei  et  hominum,  homo  Jesus  Christus  et  mori 
posset  ex  uno,  et  mori  non  posset  ex  altero.  In  integra  ergo  veri  hominis 
perfeclaque  nalura  verus  natus  est  Deus,  totus  in  suis,  tolus  in  nostris. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  215 

Leo  I  to  preside,  nor  would  he  suffer  the  reading  of  the 
dogmatic  letter  sent  to  the  patriarch  of  Constantinople;  he 
himself  struck  Flavian,  and  caused  the  maltreatment  of  the 
bishops  favorable  to  Flavian.  He  wrung  from  the  council 
decrees  of  condemnation  and  excommunication  against 
Theodoret,  bishop  of  Cyrus,  and  Ibas,  bishop  of  Kdessa,  both 
of  whom  were  charged  with  Nestorianism. 

On  learning  of  all  this,  Pope  Leo  the  Great  excommuni- 
cated Dioscorus  and  Eutyches.  The  Ephesian  council  of  449 
was  but  an  act  of  violence  perpetrated  by  Dioscorus  against 
the  bishops  of  the  Orient.  It  is  a  fake  council,  and  history 
has  properly  termed  it  the  Robber-Council  of  Ephesus. 

The  Council  of  Chalcedon.  —  After  the  fake  council 
of  Ephesus,  Dioscorus  found  himself  all-powerful.  True  he 
had  been  excommunicated  by  Pope  Leo  I,  but  this  mattered 
nothing  to  him ;  he  was  upheld  by  the  emperor  Theodosius  II, 
who  saw  in  the  Pope  a  rival,  and  was  pleased  to  join 
forces  with  the  Pope's  adversaries.  This,  together  with 
many  other  facts,  shows  that  the  final  triumph  of  Catholic 
dogma  is  not  to  be  ascribed  to  the  protection  of  the  emperors 
of  Constantinople. 

In  order  to  put  an  end  to  these  troubles,  the  Pope  asked 
the  emperor  to  convoke  a  council;  but  Theodosius  refused, 
and  Dioscorus  excommunicated  the  Pope.  In  the  meantime, 
he  emperor  died  and  was  succeeded  by  the  empress  Pul- 
cheria.  More  from  fear  than  from  conviction,  the  bishops 
that  had  clung  to  Dioscorus  now  abandoned  him. 

A  council  was  called  at  Chalcedon,  io  the  year  451. 
Six  hundred  and  thirty  bishops  responded.  The  excommuni- 
cation against  Dioscorus  was  renewed;  the  doctrine  of 
Eutyches  was  condemned;  and  the  dogmatic  letter  of  Pope 
Leo  I  to  Flavian  was  read  and  was  greeted  unanimously 
with  these  memorable  words :  Petrus  per  Leonem  locutus  est ' . 

1.  On  Ibe  person  and  the  .doctrinal  work  of  Pope  St.  Leo  the  Great,  see 


216  GOD. 

The  dogma  of  two  natures  in  Christ  was  defined  with 
the  greatest  precision.  We  must  acknowledge  in  Christ, 
says  the  Creed  of  Chalcedon,  one  and  the  same  person 
possessing  two  natures  not  intermingled  (aairp/uTux;),  nor 
changed  (aTp^TCTo)?),  both  united  in  the  same  divine  person, 
the  Word  (aStaipeiwc,  or/upicttoq}.  Thus  the  dogma  of  the  two 
natures  was  definitively  settled  at  the  council  of  Chal- 
cedon; and  henceforth  Monophysitism  lay  under  formal 
condemnation1. 

The  Monophysitic  Schism.  —  It  was  principally  after 
the  council  of  Chalcedon  that  the  doctrine  of  Eutyches  took 
firmer  root  and  developed:  though  it  assumed,  it  is  true,  a 
somewhat  different  form. 

Eutyches  held  that  the  human  nature  of  Christ  had  been 
absorbed  by  the  Divinity.  A  monk  named  Theodosius  point- 
ed out  that  such  an  absorption  of  the  human  by  the  divine 
element  was  inconceivable.  He  undertook  to  demonstrate 
the  unity  of  the  two  natures  by  the  process  of  composition 
or  of  conversion,  whence  whould  result  an  intermediary 
being,  participating  in  both  Divinity  and  humanity,  yet  being 
absolutely  neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  This  doctrine,  as 
obscure  as  the  first  and  entailing  the  denial  of  the  divinity 
of  Christ,  seemed  more  acceptable.  It  is  in  this  form  that 
Monophysitism  was  perpetuated  through  the  ages  and  is 
still  found  in  our  own  times. 

Scholastic  Theology.  —  The  theologians  did  hardly 
more  than  to  reduce  into  synthesis  and  formulae  the  results 
of  the  monophysilic  controversy,  the  diverse  phases  of  which 
we  are  now  acquainted  with. 

There  is  in  Christ  but  one  person,  the  Word,  and  two 
natures,  the  human  and  the  divine.  Now,  these  two  natures 


the   recent  work    of   A.    REGNIEH,  St.    Leo    the   Great. 
1.  DENZ.,  148. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  217 

must  be  really  without  intermingling  or  transformation.  The 
only  two  ways  in  which  they  could  be  reduced  into  one 
would  be  either  by  conversion,  or  by  absorption.  By  the 
former  process,  the  two  natures  would  be  united  in  such  a 
way  as  to  form  a  new  being,  which  would  be  neither 
wholly  human  nor  wholly  divine.  But  then  Christ  would 
be  neither  God  nor  man.  By  the  second  process,  the  human 
nature  would  cease  to  exist,  since  it  would  be  absorbed  by 
the  divine.  But  then  Christ  would  not  be  man.  Since  it  is 
impossible  to  reduce  to  unity,  either  by  the  process  of  con- 
version or  the  process  of  absorption,  the  two  natures  of  Christ, 
these  two  natures,  the  human  and  the  divine,  in  Christ, 
remain  without  intermingling  or  transformation1. 


1.  Cf.  TIIOM.  Aq.,  Sum.  theol.,  a.  in,  q.  H,  ad  i.  Tripliciter  enim  aliquid 
unum  ex  duobus,  vel  pluribus  constituilur. 

Uno  modo  ex  duobus  integris  perfectis  remanenlibus.  Quod  quidem  fieri 
non  potest  nisi  in  Us  quorum  forma  est  compositio,  vel  ordo,  vel  figura...  Et 
secundum  hocposuerunt  aliqui  unionem  essein  Christo.  Sed  hoc  non  potest 
esse...  quid  compositio,  vel  ordo,  vel  figura  non  est  forma  substantialis,  sed 
accidentalis  :  et  sic  sequeretur  quod  unio  incarnalionis  non  esset  per  se,  sed 
per  accidens...  et  sic  non  constitueretur  una  natura  in  Christo,  ut  ipsi  rolunt. 

Alio  modo  fit  aliquid  unum  ex  perfectis,  sed  transmutatis,  sicut  ex  ele- 
mentis  fit  mixtum;  et  sic  aliqui  dixerunt  unionem  incarnationis  esse  faclam 
per  modum  commixtionis.  Sed  hoc  non  potest  esse.  Primo  quidem  quia  natura 
divina  est  omnino  immutabilis,  unde  nee  ipsa  potest  converti  in  aliud,  cum 
sit  incorruptibilis ;  nee  aliud  in  ipsam,  cum  ipsa  sit  ingenerabilis.  Secundo 
quia  id  quod  est  commixtum,  nulli  miscibilium  est  idem  specie  :  differt  enim 
caro  a  quolibet  elementorum  specie.  Et  sic  Chrislus  non  esset  ejusdem  natursc 
cum  patre,  nee  cum  matre.  Tertio  quia  ex  his  qux  plurimum  distant,  non 
potest  fieri  commixtio:  solvitur  enim  species  unius  eorum,putasiquis  guttam 
aquse  amphorx  vini  apponat.  Et  secundum  hoc  cum  natura  divina  in  infinitum 
excedal  humanam  naturam,  non  potest  esse  mixlio ;  sed  remanebil  sola 
natura  divina. 

Tertio  modo  si  aliquid  ex  aliquibus  nan  permixlis,  vel  permutatis,  sed 
imperfectis,  sicut  ex  anima  et  corpore  (it  homo ;  ct  similiter  ex  diversis 
membris  unum  corpus  constituitur.  Sed  hoc  did  non  polest  de  incarnationis 
mysterio.  Primo  quidem  quia  utraque  nalura  est  secundum  rationem  suam 
perfecta,  divina  scilicet  et  humana.  Secundo  quia  natura  divina  el  humana 
non  possunt  aliquid  constituere  per  modum  partium  quantilativarum,  sicuf 
membra  conslituunt  corpus,  quia  nalura  divina  est  incorporea;  neque  per 
modum/ormx  et  malerix,  quia  divina  nalura  nnnpotesl  esse  forma  alicujus, 


218  GOD, 


ARTICLE  III 

In  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  "We  Must  Admit  Two  "Wills  and  Two 

Operations. 

Doctrine  of  the  Church.  —  We  acknowledge  in  Our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  a  divine  will  and  a  human  will.  Each  of 
these  controls  what  is  proper  to  it,  conjointly  with  the  other. 
Far  from  being  opposed  to  each  other,  the  two  are  in  perfect 
harmony  :  the  human  will  always  follows  the  divine,  that 
is,  the  human  will  always  desires  and  does  what  the  divine 
will  desires.  In  the  letter  which  was  approved  by  the 
council  of  Constantinople  and  which  served  as  the  basis  of 
all  discussions,  the  patriarch  of  Jerusalem,  St.  Sophronius, 
wrote1  :  «  The  Logos  imparted  to  the  human  nature  and  pre- 
served in  it,  when  He  wished,  the  power  to  perform  (svspyetv) 
and  to  suffer  that  which  is  proper  to  it,  in  order  that  His 
Incarnation  might  not  be  regarded  as  a  phantasm.  He 
suffered,  then,  acted  and  operated  in  a  human  manner, 
in  so  far  as  He  willed  it  and  judged  it  necessary  for  those  who 
witnessed  His  actions,  but  not  to  the  extent  to  which  the 
purely  physical  and  carnal  movements  of  His  human  nature 
would  demand.  He  humbled  Himself,  therefore,  and  became 
man  voluntarily  and  <pu<yix.w<;,  yet  He  remained  God  even  in 
this  state  of  lowliness.  He  dispensed  unto  Himself  His  own 
sufferings  and  His  own  human  actions ;and  not  only  was  He 
the  dispenser  of  these,  but  He  was  also  their  master,  though 
He  became  flesh  in  a  nature  capable  of  suffering.  Hence, 
what  was  human  in  Him  was  above  men  :  not  in  the  sense 


prseserlim  corporei  :  sequerelur  enim  quod  species  resultans  essel  commu- 
nicabilis  pluribus  ;  etita  essent  plures  Christi.  Tertioquia  Christusnonesset 
hum  anas  naturae,  neque  divinx  natursc.  Differentia  enim  addita  variat 
speciem,  sicutunitas  numerum. 

1.  See  the  whole  letter  of  Sophronius,  in  HEFELE,  op.  cit.,  vol.  Ill,  part.  I, 
1.  xvi,  pp.  369-376. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  219 

that  His  nature  was  not  truly  a  human  nature  :  but  in  this, 
that  He  became  man  freely,  and  that,  once  man,  He  accepted 
His  sufferings  voluntarily  and  not  under  compulsion  or  out 
of  necessity,  nor  even  reluctantly,  as  we  do.  He  suffered 
when  He  would  and  as  He  would.  He  permitted  those  that 
prepared  to  make  Him  suffer,  to  do  so  in  reality;  and  He 
approved  the  sufferings  He  underwent.  His  divine  actions 
the  most  brilliant  and  most  glorious,  those  that  surpass  our 
weakness,  that  is,  His  miracles,  all  were  visible  proofs  of  the 
divine  essence  and  of  the  nature  of  the  God  Logos,  though 
these  were  manifested  by  the  flesh  and  the  body  united  to  a 
rational  soul.  This  Son,  who  has  but  one  indivisible  hypo- 
stasis,  has  also  two  natures  and  works  His  divine  miracles 
through  His  divine  nature,  while  with  the  other  He  performs 
humble  actions.  Hence  it  is  that  they  that  have  a  knowledge 
of  God  tell  us  :  Whenever  you  hear  opposing  expressions 
used  regarding  the  Son,  distribute  them  conformably  to  the 
two  natures,  ascribing  to  the  divine  nature  whatever  is  great 
and  divine,  and  to  the  human  whatever  is  humble  and  human. 
Again,  they  say  of  the  Son  :  All  energy  comes  from  the  one 
Son,  but  it  is  for  us  to  determine  which  nature  has  performed 
the  given  act  ». 

For  clearness  and  precision,  the  letter  of  St.  Sophronius 
has  no  equal  except  the  definition  of  the  council  of  Constan- 
tinople, of  which  we  shall  speak  later  on.  Now,  in  this 
precise  exposition,  the  patriarch  of  Jerusalem  sought  to 
develop  only  the  doctrine  of  Sacred  Scripture  and  of  the 
Tradition  of  the  Fathers.  All  that  remains  for  us  is  to  show 
that,  despite  the  protestations  of  the  Monothelites,  his  claims 
were  well  founded. 

The  Dogma  of  a  Twofold  Will  and  a  Twofold  Operation, 
before  the  Council  of  Chalcedon.  -  The  New  Testament 
nowhere  explicitly  states  that  Christ  had  a  twofold  will  and 
a  twofold  operation.  Yet,  in  the  narrative  of  the  agony, 
where  Jesus  asks  that  not  His  will  but  the  will  of  the  Father 


220  GOD. 

be  done,  this  fact  is  strongly  suggested.  The  dogma  itself, 
however,  like  the  dogma  of  the  two  natures,  is  implicitly 
contained  in  the  dogma  that  maintains  that  Our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  is  true  God  and  true  man. 

The  Fathers  revert  again  and  again  to  this  teaching, 
and  develop  it  by  saying  that  the  Son  is  consubstantial  with 
the  Father,  that  there  is  in  the  Son  but  one  person,  the  Word, 
endowed  with  a  human  nature  and  a  divine  nature.  And 
when  Monophysitism  appears,  they  attack  it  vigorously, 
condemning  it  both  at  Ephesus  and  at  Chalcedon.  When 
they  affirm  that  there  are  in  Christ  two  natures,  not  inter- 
mingled nor  separable,  they  understand  thereby  also  that 
there  are  in  Christ  two  wills,  each  having  its  own  proper 
operations.  But  this  doctrine  was  so  special,  so  technical, 
that  no  one  thought  of  expressing  it  in  rigorous  and  technical 
terms1. 

After  the  Council  of  Chalcedon.  —  The  doctrine  of  the 
Monophysites,  as  we  saw  above,  attained  its  greatest  develop- 
ment only  after  the  council  of  Chalcedon.  In  the  year  482, 
the  emperor  Zeno,  in  order  to  reunite  the  orthodox  and  the 
Monophysites,  issued  an  edict  called  the  Edict  of  Union, 
or  Renotic,  in  which  he  declared  that  they  would  have  to 
abide  by  the  symbol  of  Nicaea,  with  the  additions  made  by  the 
symbol  of  Constantinople,  as  well  as  by  the  council  of 
Ephesus  and  the  twelve  decrees  of  Cyril  of  Alexandria.  In 


1.  The  truth  of  these  assertions  may  be  easily  ascertained  by  reading,  for 
example  in  HEFELE,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  401-426,  the  discussion  between  Maximus  and 
Pyrrhus.  Pyrrhus,  the  successor  of  Sergius  in  the  see  of  Constantinople,  and 
like  his  predecessor  a  Monolhelite,  claims  that  the  Fathers  nowhere  taught  the 
doctrine  of  a  twofold  will  and  a  twofold  operation  in  Christ,  but  that  they  held  just 
the  opposite.  He  cites  Athanasius,  Basil,  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  and  Cyril  of  Alexan- 
dria. Maximus,  the  friend  of  Sophronius,  patriarch  of  Jerusalem,  takes  up  the 
texts  in  question  and  proves  to  his  adversary  that  they  contain  implicitly  the 
doctrine  of  two  wills.  So  strong  is  thn  evidence  that  Pyrrhus  is  forced  to 
give  in. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  221 

order  to  give  satisfaction  to  the  Monophysites,  the  symbol 
of  Chalcedon  was  overlooked  altogether.  Pope  Felix  III 
rejected  entirely  the  Henotic,  whereupon  there  followed 
a  schism  that  lasted  for  thirty-five  years.  This  may  be 
regarded  as  the  forerunner  of  the  Greek  schism. 

In  the  year  544,  the  emperor  Justinian  attempted 
something  of  the  same  sort.  In  an  edict  in  which  he 
disclaimed  any  attempt  at  questioning  the  council  of  Chalce- 
don, he  condemned,  as  tainted  with  Nestoriariism,  the 
writings  of  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  those  of  Theodoret  of 
Cyrus,  and  the  letter  of  Ibas  of  Edessa,  attacking  a  condem- 
nation launched  against  Theodore  of  Mops^Qstia.  This  has 
been  called  the  condemnation  of  the  Three  Chapters.  Theo- 
doret and  Ibas  might  have  leaned  towards  Nestorianism ;  but 
thanks  to  the  action  of  St.  Cyril,  after  the  council  of  Ephesus, 
they  were  brought  back  to  orthodoxy,  and  proved  themselves 
the  firm  support  of  the  patriarch  Flavian  against  the 
Monophysites.  For  this,  they  were  highly  commended  by 
the  council  of  Chalcedon.  Now,  in  setting  on  the  same 
level  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  on  the  one  hand,  and  Theodoret 
and  Ibas,  on  the  other,  and  condemning  all  three,  the 
emperor  Justinian  was  acting  in  a  way  that  was  equivalent 
to  condemning  the  council  of  Chalcedon.  The  second  council 
of  Constantinople,  the  fifth  ecumenical  council,  convened 
in  the  year  553,  condemned  the  Three  Chapters,  renewed 
the  profession  of  faith  formulated  by  the  council  of  Chalcedon, 
and  anathematized  a  long  list  of  heretics,  among  whom 
was  Origen1. 

So  great  was  the  unrest  of  the  minds  of  the  sixth  century, 
that  peace  was  not  restored.  Owing  to  the  desire  to  put  an 
end  to  the  conflict  as  well  as  to  a  passion  for  discussion,  a 
new  heresy,  as  serious  as  any  of  the  preceding,  was  bound 
to  arise. 


1.  DENZ.,  213-228. 


222  GOD. 

Before  entering  upon  this  new  phase  of  the  conflict,  we 
must  say  something  of  the  work  of  the  Scythian  monk, 
Leontius  of  Byzantium.  A  distinguished  Aristotelian  philo- 
sopher and  a  bitter  adversary  of  Nestorianism  and  Monophy- 
sitism,  he  undertook  the  task  of  refuting  these  two  heresies. 
His  work  possesses  a  happy  originality  in  this,  that  he  set 
about  defining  \vith  greater  precision  the  notions  of  nature 
and  of  hypostasis,  and  in  exposing  the  dogma  of  the  hypostatic 
union  with  the  utmost  exactness  in  thought  and  phraseo- 
logy1- 

Monoth elitism.  — At  the  beginning  of  ihe  seventh  cen- 
tury, Monophysitism  continued  to  hold  its  own  as  an  accredi- 
ted doctrine.  Sergius,  patriarch  of  Constantinople,  had  come 
to  that  exalted  position  through  his  Monophysitism.  But 
the  supporters  of  this  doctrine  held  aloof  from  the  emperor, 
whom  they  regarded  as  their  adversary  because  of  his 
reconciliation  with  Roman  orthodoxy. 

In  order  to  overcome  this  distrust,  Sergius  advised 
Emperor  Heraclius  to  propose  a  new  formula  of  faith  drawn 
up  in  the  following  terms  :  «  We  must  admit  that  there  are 
two  natures  in  Christ,  but  only  one  will  and  one  operation.  » 
Whether  it  was  meant  by  such  a  formula  to  suppress  in 
Jesus  Christ  the  human  will  and  human  operation,  or  human 
operation  alone,  is  a  controverted  question  2.  In  the  second 
hypothesis,  Christ  would  have  retained  His  human  will,  but 
it  would  have  remained  inert.  And  according  to  both 
hypotheses,  every  activity  manifested  by  Christ  was  presented 
as  the  activity  proper  to  the  Word  of  God.  Such  was  the 
doctrine  that  received  the  name  of  Monothelitism.  It  is 
reducible  finally  to  Monophysitism ;  but  in  holding  to  the 


1.  Cfr.  supra,  p.  20. 

2.  On  this  point,   see  the  dissertation   of  PETAU,  De  Inc.    Verb.,   1.  X, 
chap,  i,  7-9.    According  to  this  author,  the  Monothelites  denied  in  Christ  both 
human  will  and  human  operations. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  223 

affirmation  of  the  two  natures,  it  retained  the  appearance 
of   orthodoxy. 

The  Struggle  against  Monothelitism.  —  This  doctrine, 
as  we  have  seen,  was  vigorously  attacked  by  a  Palestinian 
monk  named  Sophronius.  He  endeavored  to  show  that 
Monothelitism  was  but  Monophysitism  in  a  new  garb,  and 
he  opposed  it  by  the  categoric  statement  that  in  Christ  there 
are  two  wills,  each  with  its  own  operations. 

Thereupon  Sergius  wrote  to  Pope  Honorius,  saying  that 
in  teaching  that  in  Christ  there  are  two  natures  with  but  a 
single  will,  or  energy,  their  only  object  was  to  bring  back 
the  Monophysites  to  the  true  faith.  The  result,  he  says,  is 
magnificent;  but  now  comes  this  monk  Sophronius,  raising 
opposition  and  compromising  our  success,  by  saying  that 
there  are  in  Christ  two  energies,  a  thing  which,  moreover, 
cannot  be  proved  from  the  testimony  of  the  Fathers.  «  As 
for  us  »,  he  goes  on,  «  suspecting  that  discussions,  and  later 
on  heresies,  might  arise,  we  judged  it  proper  to  do  away 
with  this  discussion  of  words,  and,  with  this  in  view,  we  have 
written  to  the  Patriarch  of  Alexandria  (Cyrus,  the  mainstay 
of  Monothelitism)  not  to  suffer  anyone,  once  reconciled,  to 
speak  of  one  or  of  two  energies ;  we  must  be  content  with 
simply  believing  —  as  the  saints  and  the  ecumenical  synods 
have  taught  us  —  that  the  one  and  the  same  only  Son,  Our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  performed  both  human  and  divine  opera- 
tions (evspystv)  and  that  all  energy,  whether  divine  or  human, 
came  similarly  (<x3iaip£:u>s)  from  one  and  the  same  Logos 
made  man,  and  belongs  to  one  and  the  same.  The  expres- 
sion [xta  ev£pYEia  should  not  be  used ;  for,  although  some  holy 
Fathers  have  made  use  of  it,  it  is  quite  unknown  to  the 
faithful  and  offends  their  ears,  for  they  fear  that  it  is 
advanced  in  order  to  deny  the  two  natures  in  Christ,  which 
God  forbid.  Many,  on  the  other  hand,  are  scandalized  by 
the  use  of  the  expression,  two  energies,  because  it  is  found 
in  none  of  the  Fathers,  and  because  it  might  lead  to  the 


224  GOD. 

opinion  that  there  are  in  Christ  simultaneously  two  wills  in 
opposition  to  each  other,  in  this  sense,  that  the  Logos  might 
have  willed  to  undergo  for  us  all  the  sufferings  conducive  to 
our  salvation,  and  that  his  humanity  would  have  been  opposed 
to  this.  This  ivould  be  impious,  for  it  is  impossible  that  the 
same  person  have  on  the  same  point  contradictory  wills. 
The  Fathers  teach  that  the  human  nature  of  Christ  never 
acted  alone,  through  its  own  initiative  (opjjiVj)  and  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  inspiration  (zvsu^ati)  of  the  Logos  united  to  it; 
but  acted  when  and  how  the  Logos  would  have  it ;  and,  to 
put  it  even  more  clearly,  just  as  in  man  the  body  is  directed 
by  a  rational  soul,  so  in  Christ,  his  entire  human  nature  was 
directed  by  the  divinity  of  the  Logos;  he  was  moved  by  God 
(©SOXIVYJTOS).  So  we  came  to  the  irrevocable  decision  that 
henceforth  Sophronius  was  to  speak  no  more  of  one  or  of 
two  energies,  but  was  to  keep  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Fathers. 
The  holy  man  agreed  to  this,  promised  to  keep  his  en- 
gagement, and  asked  me  to  send  him  this  explanation  [that 
is,  the  dogmatic  exposition  made  by  Sergius,  and  contained 
in  this  letter]  in  writing,  that  he  might  show  it  to  those  who 
might  ask  him  about  the  point  in  question.  This  request 
we  readily  granted,  and  he  left  Constantinople  by  sea.  Some 
time  ago,  the  emperor  sent  us  from  Edessa  an  order  to  copy 
and  send  to  him  those  passages  of  the  Fathers  touching 
upon  the  [/.(aevfpveia.  This  was  done.  Nevertheless,  because 
of  the  trouble  that  has  been  caused  over  this  question,  we 
have  represented  to  the  emperor  what  cautious  treatment 
this  matter  required,  and  have  suggested  that  it  were  better 
to  drop  it  and  to  keep  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Fathers  as 
professed  and  known  by  everyone ;  this  doctrine  maintains 
that  the  one  and  the  same  only  Son  of  God  performed 
likewise  the  human  and  the  divine  actions,  and  that  all 
energy,  both  human  and  divine,  proceeded  in  an  indis- 
soluble and  indivisible  manner  (opcpferrwc  xai  aSisapl-uux;) 
from  the  one  and  the  same  Logos  made  man.  This  is 
what  Pope  St.  Leo  teaches,  in  these  words  :  «  Agit  utraque 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  225 

forma,  cum  alterius  communione,  quod  proprium  est1.  » 
This  letter,  we  must  admit,  was  a  clever  piece  of  work. 
The  first  object  of  its  author  was  to  show  that  Monoth elitism 
carried  with  it,  above  all,  the  affirmation  that  in  Christ  there 
was  a  harmonious  union  between  the  human  will  and  the 
divine;  and  consequently,  that  this  contention  was  nothing 
more  than  a  question  of  words.  Hence  there  was  no  use  of 
hesitating  about  concessions  regarding  mere  form,  when  it 
was  question  of  bringing  back  the  Monophysites  to  the  true 
faith.  At  bottom,  however,  the  letter  was  a  profession  of 
Monothelite  faith. 

In  answer  to  the  letter  of  Sergius,  Honorius  wrote  : 
«  My  brother,  I  have  received  your  letter,  and  have  learned 
from  it  that  a  certain  Sophronius  caused  new  troubles  against 
our  brother  Cyrus,  who  proclaimed  to  those  recovered  from 
heresy  that  our  Lord  had  but  a  single  energy... 

«  We  must  be  guided  by  what  we  have  learned... 
acknowledging  that  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  mediator 
between  God  and  man,  performed  His  divine  works  through 
the  medium  of  His  humanity  which  is  united  to  Him,  to 
Him  the  Logos,  in  a  hypostatic  manner,  and  that  He 
likewise  performed  human  operations,  since  His  flesh  was 
united  in  an  indissoluble  manner  to  His  divinity.  He  that 
in  the  flesh  was,  through  the  works  that  He  performed,  so 
resplendent  in  His  perfect  divinity,  is  the  same  that  suffered 
most  cruel  torments  in  the  flesh,  God  and  man  equally  perfect. 
In  His  two  natures,  He  is  the  mediator  between  God  and 
man...  Hence,  we  acknowledge  but  a  single  will  in  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ ;  for  our  human  nature  ivas  evidently  taken  by 
the  divinity,  and  it  icax  taken  in  its  state  of  innocence,  just 
as  it  was  before  the  fall...  In  Christ's  members  there  is 
not  another  law  and  another  will  opposing  the  Redeemer ; 
for  the  Redeemer  was  born  in  a  supernatural  manner.  And 


1.  Quoted  in  MANSI,  vol.  X,  p.  530.  —  HARDOUN,  vol.  Ill,  p.  1311.  —  HEFELE, 
loc.  cil.,  1.  XVI,  pp.  343-346. 

T.  i.  15 


-1-26  GOD. 

when  Holy  Scripture  says  «  I  am  come  not  to  do  my  will,  hut 
the  will  of  the  Father  \\ho  sent  me1  »  and  «  Not  as  I  will, 
hut  as  thou  wilt,  0  Father2  »,  it  does  not  speak  so  because 
there  is  a  difference  between  the  wills  (that  is,  as  though 
the  Son  had  a  will  opposed  to  that  of  the  Father),  but 
merely  in  an  accomodated  sense,  on  account  of  the 
humanity  whose  nature  he  took.  These  words  were  uttered 
as  an  example  to  us,  to  teach  us  that  we  are  to  do  not  our 
own  will,  but  the  will  of  the  Father...  That  our  Lord  Jesus 
CJirist,  the  Son  and  the  Logos  of  God,  by  whom  all  things 
were  made,  performed,  in  a  perfect  manner,  works  both 
human  and  divine,  is  what  the  Sacred  Scriptures  say  in  very 
explicit  terms;  but  whether,  because  Scripture  speaks  of 
divine  and  human  works,  we  should  profess  and  teach  that 
there  are  one  or  two  energies,  is  a  matter  that  does  not  concern 
us,  and  one  that  we  leave  to  grammarians  who,  in  order  to 
keep  their  pupils  ivith  them,  teach  expressions  that  they 
themselves  Itave  invented.  In  point  of  fact,  Scripture  does 
not  say  ivhether  Christ  and  His  adorable  spirit  had  one  or 
two  energies;  but  it  does  say  that  He  performed  different 
kinds  of  operations...  Since  the  spirit  of  Christ  works  in 
several  ways  in  His  members,  should  we  not  a  fortiori  admit 
that  He  performs  of  Himself,  as  mediator  between  God  and 
men,  whatever  is  most  perfect,  and  that  He  does  this  in 
several  ways,  through  the  unity  of  the  two  natures?  As  for 
its,  we  would  believe  and  reason  according  to  the  terms  of 
Holy  Writ,  and  we  would  obliterate  all  novel  terms  that 
might  scandalize  the  Church  of  God,  for  fear  that  some  simple 
souls  might  hear  us  speak  of  two  energies  and,  not  under- 
standing these  words,  might  mistake  us  for  Nestorians;  and 
on  the  other  hand,  if  we  profess  explicitly  that  there  is  but  a 
single  energy,  others  might  think  that  we  were  Eutychians... 
Far  better  were  it  that  philosophers  without  a  philosophy, 


1.  JOHN  vi,  38. 
1.  MAT.,  xxvi,  39. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  227 

idle  dreamers  in  the  realms  of  pagan  philosophy ,  continue  to 
bawl  out  at  us  their  proud  dissertations  on  nature,  than  that 
Christ's  people,  the  simple  and  poor  in  spirit,  should  be  left 
without  care.  The  disciples  of  the  Fisherman  do  not  suffer 
themselves  to  he  beguiled  by  philosophy^.  » 

Upon  receiving  this  letter,  Sergius  rejoicing  triumphantly 
announced  to   the    leaders   of   the   Monothelite   party   that 
Pope  Honorius  had  given  his  full  approval  to  their  doctrine. 
At  this  juncture,  Sophronius,    now  patriarch  of  Jeru- 
salem,  published   a  dogmatic  letter  in  which  he  showed, 
with  invulnerable  logic,  that  there  must  be  in  Christ  «  two 
wills  performing  naturally  what  was  proper  to  each,  without 
having  to  suffer  any  division  or  confusion  ;  for  each   will 
performs  that  which  is  proper  to  it,  conjointly   with  the 
other2   ».     This    letter  was   sent  to  Sergius  and  to  Pope 
Honorius.     The  Pope  then  wrote    a   second   letter  to  the 
Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  telling  him  to  see  to  it  that  the 
expression  one  or  two  energies  be  done  away  with,  since  the 
expression  is  not  Scriptural  and  is  liable  to  be  misleading. 
Let  us  be  content,  he  continues,  «  with  acknowledging  that 
the  two  natures  are  united  in  one  Christ,  that  each  operates 
and  acts  in  union  with  the  other ;  the  divine  nature  operates 
in  that  which  is  divine,  the  human  nature  accomplishes  that 
which  is  of  tJie  flesh, without  admitting  of  division  or  mixture; 
,  if  such  were  not   the  case,    the  nature   of  God  would 
be  changed    into    humanity,   and   humanity   into   the  di- 
vinity3. » 

Historians  have  ever  been  engaged  in  showing  the 
differences  that  exist  between  the  first  and  the  second  letter 
of  Pope  Honorius*.  They  agree  that  the  second  is  orthodox. 

1.  Quoted  in  MANSI,   loc.  cit.,  p.  538.  —  HARDOUN,  loc.  cit.,  p.  1319. 

HEFELB,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  350-353. 

2.  Of.  UEKBLE,  loc.  cit.,  p.  371. 

3.  These  fragments  have  been  preserved  in  the  acts  of  the  thirteenth  session 
ot  Ike  siith  ecumenical  council. 

4.  bee  HEFELE,  loc.  cil.,  pp.  376-377. 


228  GOD. 

On  the  first  they  have  much  discussion.  Some  maintain 
that  the  letter  of  the  Pope  is  clearly  Monoth elite.  For,  he 
affirms  that  the  union  of  the  two  natures  in  the  single 
hypostasis  of  the  Logos  necessitates  the  unity  of  activity  in 
Christ.  Hence,  he  holds  throughout  to  the  opinion  that  a 
single  activity  operated  human  and  divine  works,  through 
the  medium,  he  grants,  of  the  divine  nature  and  the  human 
nature. 

In  order  to  arrive  at  the  solution  of  so  grave  a  difficulty, 
we  have  to  peruse  with  care  the  documents  that  we 
deemed  necessary  to  quote  at  length.  The  letter  written 
by  Sergius  was  a  snare  laid  by  the  Patriarch  of  Cons- 
tantinople for  Pope  Honorius.  The  chief  tenet  of  Mono- 
thelism,  he  told  the  Pope,  is  the  harmonious  unity  of 
the  human  will  and  the  divine  will,  in  Christ.  By  teaching 
this,  he  contended,  we  shall  bring  back  the  Monophysites  to 
the  true  faith.  Honorius  saw  nothing  but  the  good  intentions 
of  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople;  and,  in  his  first  letter, 
he  dwelt  almost  exclusively  upon  what  he  thought  to  be 
Sergius'  true  meaning.  Better  informed  by  the  letter  that 
Sophronius  wrote  upon  the  import  of  the  debate,  he  wrote 
a  second  letter,  more  precise  than  the  first.  In  short,  the 
first  letter  of  Pope  Honorius,  when  interpreted  in  the  light 
of  the  historic  circumstances  that  prompted  it,  is  orthodox; 
but  it  lacked  a  certain  accuracy  of  expression  which  after  a 
more  profound  study  of  the  subject,  he  used  in  the  second 
letter. 

However,  the  agitation  created  by  the  Monophysites  over 
Honorius'  first  letter,  led  the  Fathers  of  the  council  of  Cons- 
tantinople to  put  a  rigorous  interpretation  upon  the  letter 
and  construe  it  in  a  heterodox  sense.  Hence  they  thought 
it  their  duty  to  anathematize  him,  along  with  the  perfidious 
Sergius. 

The  only  charge  that  can  be  brought  against  Pope  Hono- 
rius, is  that  he  neglected  to  secure  exact  information  before 
answering  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  and  that,  as  a 


THE   INCARNATE  WORD.  ?.29 

consequence,  he  contributed  to  the  success  of  Monothelitism. 
Such,  we  believe,  is  the  correct  appreciation  of  this  lamen- 
table incident.  Such  is  the  interpretation  put  upon  it  by 
Pope  Leo  II,  in  a  letter  to  the  bishops  of  Spain  :  «  Qui  (Hono- 
rius]  flammam  haeretici  dogmatis  non,  ut  decuit  apostolicam 
auctoritatem,  incipientem  exstinxit,  sed  neglegendo  con- 
fovit l  » . 

The  Third  Council  of  Constantinople,  the  Sixth  Ecu- 
menical. —  The  Monothelites,  upheld  by  the  emperor  Hera- 
clius,  paid  no  attention  to  the  letter  of  Sophronius.  Religious 
feeling  was  rampant.  Constantine  II,  the  successor  of 
Heraclius,  forbade  anyone  to  speak  of  Monothelism  or 
Dyothelism.  This  but  made  the  situation  worse.  Constan- 
tine Pogonatus,  successor  to  Constans,  then  submitted  to  Pope 
Agatho  the  plan  for  a  council.  The  Pope  eagerly  accepted 
the  proposition  and  sent  his  deputies  to  Constantinople, 
where  the  council  was  convened  (680-681).  Anathemas 
were  pronounced  against  Sergius,  Cyrus,  and  also  Honorius. 
At  the  same  time,  the  creed  of  Chalcedon  was  completed  by 
a  new  one,  which  ran  as  follows  :  «  Conformably  to  the  doc- 
trine of  the  holy  Fathers,  we  teach  that  there  are  in  Christ 
two  natural  wills  (5-Jo  <?u<iiy.a<;  OsX-^aet?  iTJTCi  OsXv^aTa  ev  aitw) 
and  two  natural  operations  (xal  Siio  <puaixa<;  evspYsta?)  which 
are  indivisibly  (ictat^Twc),  unchangeably  (drcp£7:TG>s),  undi- 
videdly  (otiupforuf),  unconfusedly  (ocrtrj^iiTwj).  These  two 
natural  wills  are  not  mutually  opposed,  as  impious  heretics 
have  claimed,  but  the  human  will  is  obedient;  he  does  not 
resist,  does  not  disobey,  he  is  subject,  on  the  contrary,  to 
the  divine  and  all-powerful  will.  The  will  of  the  human 
nature  must  have  energized,  but  it  must  also  have  submitted 
to  the  divine  will,  as  the  learned  Athanasius  maintains.  In 
truth,  just  as  his  flesh  (his  humanity)  is  called,  and  really  is, 


1.    HARDOUIN,  vol.  Ill,  1475,  1730. 


230  GOD. 

the  flesh  of  the  God  Logos,  so  the  natural  will  of  his  flesh  is 
a  proper  will  of  the  Logos...  We  teach,  furthermore,  that, 
there  are  in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  two  natural  operations 
aoiat^rcdx;.  atpezTwc,  aptpfotttf*  aauy^u-wc,  that  is  to  say,  the 
divine  operation  and  the  human  will.  We  do  not  admit 
that  God  and  his  creation  (the  humanity  of  Christ)  has  but 
one  and  the  same  operation,  in  order  not  to  allow  the  creature 
enter  into  the  substance  of  the  divinity  and  not  to  reduce 
to  the  level  of  the  creature  that  which  is  peculiar  to  the 
divine  nature.  We  believe  that  one  and  the  same  performed 
miracles  and  underwent  suffering's,  yet  according1  to  their 
different  natures,  and  we  believe  that  there  exist  two  natures 
in  a  single  hypostasis,  each  of  which  wills  and  operates,  in 
union  with  the  other,  that  which  is  proper  to  it;  we  profess 
likewise  that  the  two  wills  and  the  two  operations  tend  to  the 
same  end,  which  is  the  salvation  of  the  human  race{.  » 

This  last  sentence  of  the  creed  of  Constantinople  com- 
prises, in  very  succinct  form,  the  dog-ma  of  the  hypostatic 
union,  the  dogma  of  the  two  natures,  and  that  of  the  two 
wills  and  the  two  operations,  that  is,  the  three  dogmas 
which  together  constitute  the  dogma  of  the  fact  of  the 
Incarnation  2. 


1.  DEN/.,  291-292. 

2.  Once  a  person  has  studied  the  main  phases  of  (he  fact  of  the  Incarnation 
there  usually  arise  in  his  mind  certain  questions  of  minor  importance. 

We  have  seen  that  Christ's  human  nature,  in  order  to  be  united  to  the 
person  of  the  Word,  had  to  undergo  a  certain  modification  in  being  deprived  of 
its  own  personality.  The  question  comes  up  whether  Ihe  Word  too,  had  to 
undergo  any  intrinsic  modification. 

About  Ihe  middle  of  the  19th  century,  Protestants  maintained  that,  in 
becoming  Incarnate,  the  Word  was  really  stripped,  or  annihilated,  according 
to  the  expression  of  St.  Paul,  exsvwae  (Pliilipp.,  II,  7),  in  this  sense  that  He 
was  limited  and  localized  as  to  His  being  and  His  divinity,  and  this  to  suck 
a  degree  that  He  lost  the  consciousness  of  His  divine  personality.  This  doc- 
trine they  called  the  kenosis  of  the  preexislent  Christ.  Some  went  so  far  as 
to  say  that  the  Incarnation  had  brought  about  a  profound  modification  in  the 
Godhead  itself.  They  held  that  all  through  the  period  of  the  Son's  earthly 
existence  there  was  a  momentary  interruption  of  the  relations  of  love  that  unite 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  231 

ad  iutra  the  Father  and  the  Son;  that  the  Father  ceased  to  engender  the  Son, 
that,  for  the  time  being,  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeded  from  the  Father  alone ;  and 
that  the  world  was  governed  without  the  concurrence  of  the  Son. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  show  that  such  a  doctrine  is  incompatible  with  the 
absolute  divinity  of  the  Word,  or  of  the  preexistent  Christ.  Furthermore,  this 
doctrine  rests  upon  a  false  interpretation  of  the  epistle  to  the  Philippians.  W7hat 
the  Apostle  teaches  is  that  Christ  renounced  momentarily,  in  His  human  nature, 
the  glory  due  Him  as  God,  because,  in  this  human  nature,  He  first  had  to  expiate 
through  suffering  the  sins  of  the  human  race. 

In  the  Incarnation,  the  Word  then  underwent  no  intrinsic  modification. 
Whatever  modification  there  was,  was  on  the  side  of  His  human  nature. 
Instead  of  being  personal  and  belonging  to  itself,  this  nature  was  deprived  of 
its  personality  and  belonged  to  the  Word  of  God. 

A  union  of  this  kind  could  take  place  only  upon  the  appearance  of  the  human 
nature,  that  is,  at  the  moment  of  the  conception  of  Jesus. 

We  readily  admit  that  this  union  existed  all  through  the  period  of  the 
earthly  existence  of  our  Savior.  During  the  three  days  that  our  Savior  lay  dead, 
His  body  and  His  soul,  though  separated,  were  still  hypostatically  united  to  the 
Word. 

In  the  15th  century,  there  arose  a  discussion  between  the  Franciscans  and 
the  Dominicans  as  to  whether  the  blood  that  Jesus  had  shed  remained  hyposta- 
tically united  to  the  Word.  The  dispute  was  laid  under  interdict  by  Pope 
Paul  II,  in  1464,  and  was  never  renewed.  The  Pope's  document  follows  : 
Auctoritate  apostolica  statuimus  et  ordinamus,  quod  nulli  Fratrum  praedic- 
torum  (Minorum  out  Praedicatorum)  deinceps  liceat  de  supradicta  dubietate 
disputare,  praedicare,  vel  publice  aut  private  verbum  facere,  seu  aliis 
suadere  quod  videlicet  haereticum  vel  peccatum  sit,  tenere  vel  credere 
sanguinem  ipsum  sacratissimum  (ul  praemittitur)  triduo  passionis  ejusdem 
Domini  nostri  Jesu  Chrisli  ab  ipsa  divinitate  quomodolibet  fuisse  vel  non 
fuisse  divisum  vel  separatum,  donee  super  dubietatis  hujusmodi  decisione 
quid  tenendum  sit,  fuerit  per  nos  et  Sedem  Apostolicam  definilum.  DENZ., 
718. 

The  hypostatic  union  was,  then,  continuous  during  the  time  of  the  earthly 
existence  of  our  Savior,  and  during  the  time  of  His  death.  No  one  has  ever 
questioned  that  it  must  last  through  eternity.  This  latter  doctrinal  view  on 
the  question  belongs  to  the  common  doctrino.  Besides,  it  is  strongly  set  forth 
in  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  where  the  risen  Christ  is  represented  as  the 
eternal  Priest,  of  the  New  Covenant.  Remaining  eternally  priest,  He  remains 
eternally  the  Incarnate  Word. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  HUMANITY  OF  OUR   LORD 

The  Person  of  the  Word,  possessing-  from  all  eternity 
the  divine  nature,  took  in  time  a  human  nature  which  com- 
bined in  it,  without  intermingling'  or  possibility  of  intermin- 
gling with  the  divine  nature,  all  the  essential  elements  and 
all  the  properties  of  humanity,  with  the  exception  of  human 
personality.  These  are  the  conclusions  drawn  from  the 
preceding  chapter. 

So  far,  we  have  considered  the  humanity  of  Christ  solely 
from  the  point  of  view  of  its  constituent  elements.  It  remains 
for  us  now  to  examine  its  attributes. 

The  Word  of  God  was  joined  to  our  human  nature  by 
an  hypostatic  union,  in  order  that  human  nature  become  His 
human  nature.  And  this  was  done  for  the  salvation  of  the 
world.  Under  such  conditions,  it  would  appear  that  the 
Word  must  be  united  to  a  nature  that  was  perfect,  not  only 
in  its  constitutive  elements,  but  also  in  the  totality  of  quali- 
ties that  become  human  nature.  Nevertheless,  the  perfection 
of  Christ's  human  nature  must  be  determined  by  the  end  to 
be  attained.  Hence  it  is  that  the  human  nature  assumed  by 
Christ  was  passible  and  mortal ;  that  is,  was  subject  to  suffer- 
ing,, even  suffering  unto  death. 

This  subjection  is  an  imperfection  which  adds  further 
.to  the  mysteriousness  of  the  Incarnation.  It  is  a  mystery  to 
us  how  the  Word  of  God  could  unite  Himself  to  our  flesh ; 
and  it  is  still  further  a  mystery  how  He  could  unite  Himself 
to  a  flesh  subject  to  such  infirmities. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  233 

Christ's  passibility  and  His  mortality,  together  with 
the  power  to  perform  miracles,  constitute  what  may  he 
called  the  three  exterior  attributes  of  the  humanity  of  Christ. 
We  shall  confine  ourselves  to  the  more  interior  attributes  of 
this  humanity.  These  may  be  reduced  to  three  principal 
heads  :  the  pre-eminent  sanctity  of  our  Savior,  His  wonderful 
human  knowledge,  coupled  with  the  most  delicate  and  well- 
ordered  sentiments. 


FIRST  ARTICLE 
The  Sanctity  of  Christ. 

Positive  Sanctity  and  Negative  Sanctity.  —  Sanctity 
consists  in  the  detachment  from  creatures  and  adhesion  to 
God  :  Aversio  a  creaturis  et  conversio  ad  Deum.  In  a  soul, 
these  two  states  are  in  inverse  ratio  to  each  other ;  the  less 
the  attachment  to  creatures,  the  greater  the  union  with  God. 
Sanctity  consists  in  a  movement  that  brings  the  creature 
nearer  to  God  in  proportion  as  it  separates  it  from  creatures. 

Hence,  sanctity  in  a  soul  may  be  regarded  from  two 
different  aspects  :  the  one  in  its  detachment  from  creatures, 
the  other  in  its  union  with  God.  The  first  aspect  represents 
negative  sanctity;  the  second,  positive  sanctity. 

In  a  soul  of  superior  sanctity,  such  as  that  of  our  Lord, 
positive  sanctity  is  predominant,  and  must  be  given  first 
place.  From  the  positive  sanctity  of  Christ,  we  shall  be 
able  to  estimate  the  negative. 

SECTION  I 

POSITIVE    SANCTITY. 

General  Description.  —  We  see  from  the  New  Testament 
that  Christ  strives  to  be  obedient  in  all  things,  by  conforming 
to  the  will  of  His  Father.  This  abandonment  to  the  will  of 


234  GOD. 

God  leads  Him  to  have  unceasing"  recourse  to  prayer.  He 
always  acts  out  of  the  motive  of  charity.  His  actions  have 
their  source  in  the  life  of  grace,  which  He  possesses  in  all 
its  plenitude.  Truly,  it  would  be  hard  to  conceive  of  a  sanc- 
tity more  admirable. 

v 

The  Savior's  Obedience.  —  Christ's  whole  work  lay  in 

attending-  His  Father's  business1 ;  His  meat  is  to  do  the  will  of 
His  Father2;  for  this  reason,  too,  Christ  foregoes  His  own 
pleasure,  and  does  only  what  is  pleasing  to  God3.  At  the  end 
of  His  life,  if  there  is  any  testimony  that  pleases  Him,  it  is 
that  of  having  done  the  will  of  His  Father,  of  having  accom- 
plished His  work,  of  having  fulfilled  His  duty4. 

Christ's  Continual  Prayer.  —  He  prays  early  in  the 
morning5,  in  the  day6  and  at  night7.  He  prays  both  before 
acting8,  and  after  the  task  is  accomplished-*,  before  performing 
miracles10  after  his  successful  work11,  and  during  his  pas- 
sion12. 

Christ's  Ardent  Charity.  —  The  most  striking  thing  in 
the  Gospel  portrayal  of  Christ's  character  is  certainly  His 
charity.  This  can  hardly  be  spoken  of  merely  as  a  trait  of 
His  character,  so  much  does  it  influence  all  the  others,  so 
conspicuous  is  it  as  the  center  of  all  His  ideas,  of  all  His  senti- 
ments, of  all  His  acts  :  better  to  say  that  Jesus  is  all  charity. 


1.  Luxe,  ii,  49. 

2.  JOHN,  iv,  34. 

3.  JOHN,  vm,  29.  —  Rom.,  xv,  3. 

4.  JOHN,  xvn,  4;  xix,  30. 

5.  MARK,  I,  35. 

6.  LUKE,  ix,  18;  xi,  1. 

7.  LUKE,  vi,  12. 

8.  LURE,  vi,  12-13. 

9.  LUKE,  v,  16. 

10.  MARK,  vn,  34.  —  JOHN,  xi,  41-42. 

11.  MARK,  vi,  46. 

12.  MAT.,  xxvii,  4. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  235 

Christ  loves  men;  and  because  He  loves  them,  He  suffers 
everything-  from  them,  rather  than  hate  them.  He  shows  not 
the  least  resentment  at  the  base  ingratitude  and  perfidy  of 
Judas.  Upon  the  treasonable  Peter,  the  disciple  of  His  hope, 
He  casts  but  one  look;  and  this  one  look  is  so  full  of  love  and 
sadness,  that  the  ungrateful  disciple  is  seized  with  bitter 
remorse  and  repents  :  «  Peter  going-  out,  wept  bitterly  », 
says  St.  Luke1.  On  the  cross,  He  undergoes  the  most  igno- 
minious death,  and  not  the  least  murmur  escapes  His  lips. 
And  all  this,  because  He  loves  men,  and  He  knows  that  by 
this  death  He  is  procuring  unto  them  the  greatest  of  all 
blessings,  eternal  salvation. 

The  love  of  Jesus  is  not  only  a  long-suffering  love,  it  is 
also  an  active  one.  Jesus  sees  and  understands  the  misery 
of  those  that  suffer;  He  has  the  deepest  compassion  for  them, 
and  He  relieves  their  sufferings2. 

Now  to  compassionate  the  sufferings  of  others,  to  make 
these  sufferings  one's  own,  is  the  highest  degree  of  active 


1.  LUKE,  xxn,  62. 

2.  In  the  first  chapter  of  his  gospel.  St.  Mark  narrates  the  beginnings  of  the 
ministry  of  Jesus  in  Galilee.    He  writes  :  «  And  there  came  a  leper  to  him, 
beseeching  him,  and  kneeling  down  said  to  him  :  If  thou  wilt,  thou  canst  make 
mo  clean.    And  Jesus,  having  compassion  on  him,  stretched  forth  his  hand  ;  and 
touching  him.  said  to  him  :  I  will.    Be  lliou  made  clean.    And  immediately  the 
leprosy  departed  from  him,  and  he  was  made  clean  ».    Cf.  MARK,  i,  40.    This 
example  manifests  very  well  the  activity  of  our  Savior's  charity.     He  considers 
the  wretchedness  of  the  poor  leper,  an;l  realizes  that  his  malady  excludes  him 
from  Jewish  society,  to  which  he  is  an  object  of  disgust  and  a  vile  sinner.    But 
Jesus  not  only  sees  and  understands  this  misery,  He  also  suffers  from  it,  and  He 
compassionates  it  with  all  His  soul  :  «  And  Jesus  had  compassion  on  him  »,says 
the  evangelist.    This  deep  anguish  at  the  sufferings  of  another,  this  compassion, 
is  it  not  acting  in  the  highest  degree !  His  compassion  goes   so  far  as  to  impel 
Jesus  to  touch  the  poor  leper,  a  thing  that  no  Jew  would  have  dared  to  do;  and 
by  touching  him,  He  heals  him  by  virtue  of  the  power  He  possesses.     We  may  add 
that  this  is  not  the  only  fact  of  its  kind  in  the  history  of  the  ministry  of  our 
Lord.    There  are  many  others,  just  as  edifying,  just,  as  instructive,  and  mani- 
festing quite  as  well  the  activity  of  the  love  of  Jesus.     Suffice  it  to  mention  the 
healing  of  the  daughter  of  the  woman  of  Canaan  (MAT.,  xv,  22),  the  healing  of 
the  son  of  the  centurion  (MAT.,  in,  3),  the  raising  of  the  son  of  the  widow  of  Nairn 
(LORE,  VH,  13),  and  the  raising  of  Lazarus  (Join,  xi). 


236  GOD. 

charity.  Hence  it  is  that  St.  Peter  can  say  in  all  truth  that 
Jesus  \vent  about  doing  good1. 

Finally,  if  to  love  is  to  spend  one's  self  with  one's  whole 
soul,  even  to  the  point  of  giving  one's  self,  we  must  here 
again  admire  the  love  of  Jesus  for  us.  He  was  pleased  to 
proclaim  during  the  course  of  His  ministry  that  He  came  to 
give  Himself  as  a  ransom  for  many2.  Both  priest  and  victim 
of  His  priesthood,  He  did,  in  fact,  shed  His  blood  most  gener- 
ously for  us.  By  this  sacrifice  He  blotted  out  the  sin  of  man. 

The  charity  that  Jesus  had  for  men  was,  however,  but 
one  of  the  forms  of  charity  that  He  entertained  for  God,  His 
Father.  It  is,  in  truth,  impossible  to  love  God  without 
wishing,  in  proportion  to  our  love,  to  see  the  kingdom  of  God 
established  in  souls,  aud  without  spending  ourselves,  in  an 
equally  proportionate  measure,  towards  the  establishing  of 
this  kingdom.  The  love  of  God  and  of  our  neighbor,  then, 
constitute  but  one  and  the  same  love;  or,  to  be  more  exact, 
the  charity  that  a  Christian  should  have  for  his  neighbor, 
is  but  a  logical  consequence  of  the  love  that  he  entertains 
towards  God.  The  one  may  be  measured  by  the  other. 
Since  such  is  the  case,  the  love  of  Jesus  for  men  gives  us  an 
insight  into  the  degree  of  His  love  for  His  heavenly  Father. 
This  charity  was  manifested  chiefly  by  the  care  He  had  for 
the  glory  of  God  the  Father;  by  His  obedience  in  doing  all 
things  according  to  the  will  of  God ;  by  His  fidelity  in  obser- 
ving the  law,  which  to  Him  was  the  expression  of  the  will 
of  God ;  by  His  continual  prayer,  which  united  Him  to  God ; 
by  the  special  manner,  distinctive  and  unique,  in  which  He 
calls  God  His  Father.  We  must  go  no  further ;  for  we  should 
then  be  going  beyond  the  love  that  the  holy  soul  of  Jesus 
entertained  for  God,  and  should  be  entering  upon  the  love  of 
the  only  Son  for  the  Father,  of  the  Son  living  with  the  Father 


1.  Acts.,  x,  38. 

2.  MAT.,  xx,  28.  —  MARK,  x,  45. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  237 

and  the  Holy  Ghost  in  one  single  communion  of  Life,  Light, 
and  Love. 

Christ  Received  the  Fulness  of  Grace.  —  In  the  prologue 
of  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  John,  it  is  written  that  the  Word 
of  God,  the  Life  and  the  Light,  the  Life  vivifying  all  men, 
the  Light  enlightening  all  men,  was  made  flesh.  In  taking 
this  flesh,  the  Word  communicated  to  it  both  life  and  light  in 
the  highest  degree,  in  order  that  it  might  thence  be  diffused 
among  the  hearts  of  all  men.  Hence,  Christ,  in  His  humanity, 
possesses  the  fulness  of  life  and  light,  that  is,  the  plenitude 
of  grace  :  and  of  this  fulness  we  have  all  received. 

Theology  has  taken  up  this  doctrine,  and  explains  as 
follows  the  wonderful  state  of  grace  of  our  Savior.  First,  we 
acknowledge  in  Him  the  grace  of  union,  gratia  unionis. 
Through  this  grace,  the  humanity  of  Christ,  without  any 
merit  whatsoever  on  its  own  part,  was  hypostatically  united 
to  the  Word,  and  belonged  no  longer  to  itself  but  wholly  to 
the  Word;  and  the  Word  became  the  sole  responsible  source 
of  everything  that  was  accomplished  in  this  humanity  and 
through  it.  This  doctrine  is  of  faith,  as  well  as  the  dogma 
of  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation. 

There  is  besides  a  doctrine  that  is  commonly  held  among 
theologians.  It  is  this  :  Christ's  humanity  received  ordinary 
grace  in  all  its  fulness.  In  order  to  render  it  worthy  of  the 
hypostatic  union,  His  humanity  was  endowed  with  habitual 
grace  to  the  fullest  extent  that  any  creature  can  be  endowed. 
In  the  holy  soul  of  Jesus,  sanctifying  grace  was  raised  even  to 
the  point  of  beatific  vision.  And  this  was  so  even  from  the 
first  instant  of  the  hypostatic  union1. 


1.  Cf.  THOM.,  Ay.,  De  rerilale,  quaest.  xxix,  a.  i  :  Duplex  ad  Deum 
palest  esse  conjunctio:  unasecundum  esse  in  una persona...,  alia  secundum 
operationem...  Prima  quidem  conjunctio  sine  secunda  ad  beatitudinem 
non  sufficit,  quia  nee  ipse  J)eus  bealus  essel,  si  te  non  cognosceret  et  amaret ; 
non  enim  in  seipso  deleclaretur,  quod  ab  beatitudinem  requiritur.  Ad  hoc 
ergo  quod  anima  Christi  sit  beata,  praeter  vnionem  ipsius  ad  Verbum  in 


238  GOD. 

When  a  man  receives  sanctifying  grace,  he  is  at  the  same 
time  put  in  possession  of  a  cortege  of  infused  virtues  enabling 
him  to  act  supernaturally.  These  are  the  theological  virtues 
of  faith,  hope,  and  charity,  and  the  moral  virtues.  Now,  in 
order  to  be  able  to  act  supernaturally,  the  holy  soul  of  our 
Savior  must  likewise  receive  these  infused  virtues,  but  in  a 
measure  compatible  with  the  beatific  vision.  Hence  it  received 
the  theological  virtue  of  charity.  He  had  not,  however, 
faith  or  hope,  since  these  bear  about  the  same  relation  to  the 
beatific  vision  as  does  the  seed  to  the  full-grown  plant.  He 
had,  also,  the  moral  virtues,  not  to  give  Him  dominion  over 
concupiscence,  —  for  He  was  entirely  exempt  from  the 
tendencies  that  constitute  concupiscence  —  but  to  enable  Him 
to  perform  the  other  acts  of  these  virtues;  namely,  using 
the  goods  of  this  world  as  a  means  to  go  to  God. 

Let  us  add  that  the  Savior  possessed  the  fulness  of  the 
gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  according  to  what  the  prophet  Isaias 1 
declared;  and  that  He  received  also,  in  an  altogether  unique 
manner,  all  the  graces  which  were  to  enable  Him  to  perform 
His  preeminent  mission  of  prophet.  These  graces  are  called 
in  theology  gratias  gratis  dalte2. 

SECTION  II 

NEGATIVE    SANCTITY. 

General  Description.  —  If  the  hypostatic  union  required, 
as  a  result,  that  the  humanity  of  our  Lord  possess  positive 


persona,  requirilur  unio  per  operat-ionem,  ut  scilicet  videat  Deum  per  essen- 
tiam,  et  videndo  fruatur.  Hoc  autem  excedit  naturalem  potentiam  cujus- 
libet  crealurae;  soli  autem  Deo  secundum  naturam  suam  convenient 
est.  Oportet  igitur,  supra  naturam  animae  Christi  aliquid  sibi  addi,  per 
quod  ordinatur  ad  praedictam  beatitudinem ;  et  hoc  dicimus  gratiam. 
"Untie  necesse  est  in  anima  Chrisli  gratiam  ponere. 

1.  Is.  xi,  13. 

1.  Cf.  L.  BILLOT,  De  Verbo  Incarnato,  thesis  XVI,  p.  130  :  At  vero  non 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  23D 

sanctity,  for  a  still  greater  reason  did  it  render  negative 
sanctity  necessary.  The  Word  of  God  made  that  humanity 
which  He  assumed  His  own,  to  this  extent  that  lie  became 
responsible  for  all  that  was  accomplished  in  this  humanity 
and  through  it.  Since  this  is  the  case,  it  is  impossible  to 
conceive  that  this  humanity  commit  sin,  or  even  be  capable 
of  commiting  sin.  The  hypostatic  union  renders  this  huma- 
nity incapable  of  commiting  sin.  Such  is  the  proposition 
which  we  shall  now  establish.  This  we  shall  do  by  demons- 
trating the  sinlessness  of  Christ,  His  exemption  from  concu- 
piscence and  from  original  sin,  His  impeccability,  and  His 
miraculous  conception. 

The  Sinlessness  of  Christ-  —  A  passage  frequently 
brought  up  as  an  argument  against  the  sinlessness  of  Christ, 
is  that  containing  the  following  narrative,  found  in  the  three 
synoptic  Gospels1.  An  Israelite  threw  himself  at  the  feet  of 
Jesus  and  said  to  him  :  «  Good  Master,  what  must  I  do  to  pos- 
sess eternal  life?  Jesus  answers  :  «  Why  callest  thou  me 
good?  None  is  good  but  God  ».  The  inference  is  drawn 
from  this  that  Jesus  thereby  put  Himself  in  the  category  of 
sinners. 

The  falsity  of  such  an  interpretation  becomes  at  once 
evident,  if  we  take  the  pains  to  explain  the  text  in  the  light 
of  its  context.  In  the  eyes  of  this  Jew,  Jesus  was  but  a  doctor 
of  the  Law,  like  any  other.  He  calls  Jesus  «  good  Master  », 
just  as  he  would  have  addressed  any  doctor  whatsoever;  for 
so  optimistic  is  his  disposition,  that  he  in  no  way  doubts  the 
moral  excellence  of  those  that  speak  or  act  in  the  name  of 


fuerunt  (gratix  gratis  datx]  in  eo  secundum  eamdem  rationem  quam  kabent 
in  aliis,  sect  mullo  cminenliorimodo.  Nam  prop hetia,  discretio  spirituum, 
sermo  sapientix,  alim/ue  hujusmodi,  continebanlur  in  perfections  scientiac 
turn  bealae,  turn  infusae,  qua  anima  ejus  semper  fuit  repleta.  Et  similitcr 
operatic  virtutum,  gratia  sanitatum,  etc.,  in  liabitudine  suae  humanitatis 
ad  divinitatem,  tanquam  con  June  ti  instrument*  ad  agens  principale. 
\.  MAT.,  xix,  17.—  MARK,  x,  18.  —  LUKE,  XYIII,  li). 


240  GOD. 

God.  After  Jesus  has  enumerated  the  principal  command- 
ments of  the  Law,  that  man  examines  his  conscience  and 
finds  that  he  can  reproach  himself  with  no  irregularity  and 
that  he  has  fulfilled  the  Lawr  in  both  letter  and  spirit.  Hence, 
it  seems  that  it  was  only  to  make  him  reflect  and  to  disabuse 
him  of  his  illusion,  that  Jesus  puts  him  the  question,  which  is 
equivalent  to  saying  :  «  You  say  that  I  am  good ;  but  do  you 
really  know  what  you  are  talking  about?  Are  you  aware 
that  God  alone  has  just  claim  upon  the  title  of  good?  »  Jesus 
does  not  wish  to  imply  that  He  Himself  is  not  worthy  of  the 
title  given  Him;  He  merely  wishes  to  give  His  questioner  a 
better  appreciation  of  the  title,  and  to  impart  to  him  a  finer 
sense  of  discernment. 

The  sinlessness  of  Christ  is  shown  by  other  testimonies 
in  the  New  Testament.  Jesus  declares  that  He  has  come  to 
fulfil  the  Law;  that  is  to  say,  to  strip  it  of  the  interpretations 
that  the  Scribes  have  put  upon  it,  and  to  raise  it  even  to  the 
perfection  of  the  law  of  love  * .  To  the  Jews  he  flings  this 
challenge,  which  none  of  them  take  up  :  «  Which  of  you 
will  accuse  me  of  sin?  »2  His  moral  holiness  is  so  great  that 
He  can  proclaim  Himself  Son  of  God,  in  a  quite  unique  and 
transcendental  sensey;  that  He  can  remit  sin;  and  offer  His 
blood  as  a  ransom  for  the  sins  of  men4.  Him  that  knew  no 
sin,  says  St.  Paul,  God  hath  made  sin  for  us,  that  we  might 
be  made  the  justice  of  God  in  him5.  And  truly.  He  took  on 
all  our  infirmities,  sin  alone  excepted6. 

Such  language  as  this  brings  us  face  to  face  with  this 
dilemma  :  Either  the  one  using  such  language  was  cons- 


1.  MAT.,  v,  17. 

2.  JOHN,  VHI,  46. 

3.  Cf.  the  detailed  study  of  this  expression,  in  the  first  part  of  these  studies, 
p.  72-77 ; 

4.  MAT.,  xx,  28;  xxvi,  26-27.  —  MARK,  x,  45.  —  LURE,  xxn,  19-20. 

5.  II  Cor.,  v,  21.  «  Hath  made  sin  for  us  »,  This  is  an  hebraism,  signifying 
that  our  Lord  was  made  the  victim  for  the  sins  of  men. 

6.  Hebr.,  iv,  15. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  241 

ciousof  being-  but  a  man  like  the  rest  of  us,  and  then  he- 
was  guilty  of  blasphemy  or  of  folly ;  or  he  was  conscious  of 
being  really  exempt  from  all  sin,  and  hence  he  had  the  right 
to  assume  the  title  of  Son  of  God,  in  quite  a  unique  sense, 
he  had  the  right  to  forgive  sin  and  to  offer  up  his  blood  for 
the  remission  of  sin.  The  exalted  moral  character  of  Jesus 
wholly  precludes  the  first  part  of  the  dilemma. 

Finally,  the  sinlessness  of  Christ  was  defined  by  the 
council  of  Florence1. 

Exemption  from  Concupiscence  and  from  Original  Sin. 
—  Not  only  did  the  Savior  not  commit  sin,  but  He  appeared 
in  our  midst  without  bearing  in  His  flesh  the  internal  cause 
of  sin,  concupiscence.  By  concupiscence  we  mean  those 
three  inordinate  tendencies  towards  honors,  riches,  and 
pleasures,  which  are  deeply  rooted  incur  corrupted  nature2. 

The  sacred  humanity  of  Christ,  free  from  concupis- 
cence, was  a  fortiori  exempt  from  original  sin.  This  point 
is  expressly  mentioned  by  the  council  of  Florence,  when  it 
says  that  the  Savior  was  conceived  without  sin,  sine  peccato 
conceptus. 


1.  DENZ.,  711  :  Firmiter  credit  (Ecclesia),  profitetur  et  docet,  neminem 
unquam  a  viro  feminaque  conceplum  a  diaboli  dominatione  fuisse  libera- 
tum  nisi  per  meritum  mediatoris  Dei  et  hominum  Jesu  Christi  Domini  nos- 
tri  :  qui  sine  peccato  conceplus,  nalus  et  morluus,  humani  generis  hostem, 
peccafa  noslra  delendo,  solus  sua  morte  prostravit :  et  regni  cxlestis   in- 
troitum,  quern  primus  homo  peccato  proprio  cum  omni  successione  perdi- 
derat,  reservavit  :  quern  aliquando  venturum  omnia  Veteris  Testamenti  sa- 
cra, sacrificia,  sacramenla,  ceremonix  prxsignarunt. 

The  same  doctrine  had  already  been  defined  by  the  council  of  Ephesus, 
which  declared  that  He  that  did  become  victim  for  us  was  wholly  without 
knowing  sin.  Cf.  DENZ.,  p.  122. 

2.  NVtr  not  infrequently  see  concupiscence  identified  with  passion.  From  Hie 
fact  that  there  was  in  Christ  no  concupiscence,  it  is  concluded  that  he  had  no 
passions,  either.   Psychologically,  this  is  entirely  wrong.    Concupiscence  is  not 
passion  :  it  is  a  disorder  of  the  passions.    Christ  did  have  passions,  but  His 
passions  were  thoroughly  under  the  control  of  reason,  and  he  was  consequently 
free  from  concupiscence.    This  doctrine  will  be  discussed  later,  pp.  280-284.. 

T.  I.  16 


•242  GOD. 

Christ's  Impeccability.  —  Christ's  sinlessness,  His  freedom 
from  concupiscence  and  original  sin,  grows  out  of  a  much 
more  fundamental  doctrine,  and  one  which,  though  not 
formally  defined  hy  the  Church,  is  nevertheless  commonly 
held  as  certain;  and  this  is  the  doctrine  of  Christ's  Impec- 
cability. Nor  is  the  reason  of  this  doctrine  far  to  seek.  By 
the  very  fact  that  the  Word  of  Godmade  huniannatureHisown, 
He  is  responsible  for  everything  that  goes  on  in  this  nature. 
Now,  the  Word  of  God  could  not  be  the  subject  of  a  sinful 
human  nature,  nor  even  of  one  that  had  a  practical  aptitude 
for  sin.  Hence,  was  Christ's  humanity  not  only  sinless 
but,  by  the  very  fact  of  the  hypostatic  union,  it  was  ren- 
dered absolutely  impeccable. 

Impeccability  and  Temptation.  —  In  our  endeavor  to 
reconcile  these  two  terms,  let  us  begin  with  a  concrete  case. 
A  child  has  before  him  good  things  that  make  his  mouth 
water,  and  stir  his  appetite.  He  is  tempted.  What  is  going 
on  in  that  child's  soul?  His  imagination  is  filled  with  all 
the  sensible  pleasures  that  he  will  experience  in  eating  the 
thing;  this  impression  on  his  imagination  arouses  his  desire. 
Under  the  influence  of  desire,  his  will  is  seriously  stirred  up ; 
and  it  is  easy  to  see  what  would  soon  happen,  were  he  not 
restrained  by  fear  of  punishment.  This  is  temptation,  in  all 
its  strenght.  Let  us  consider  the  same  set  of  circumstances, 
once  the  child  is  grown  to  manhood.  There  is  the  same 
object;  the  same  impression  on  the  imagination  of  the 
sensible  pleasures  that  would  arise  from  eating.  But  now, 
though  face  to  face  with  the  same  sensible  pleasures,  he 
remains  passive  and  cold,  and  that  simply  because  of  the 
subduel  condition  of  his  passions.  The  temptation  is  now 
confined  to  his  imagination. 

This  example  will  enable  us  to  understand  better  the 
traditional  teaching  of  Catholic  theology  on  the  temptation 
of  Christ.  In  the  Savior's  soul,  the  passions  were  subdued 
and  under  perfect  control.  Hence,  the  representation  of 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  243 

evil  left  Him  entirely  indifferent;  templation  was  for  Him 
restricted  altogether  to  the  imagination. 

This  solution  explains  well  the  temptation  of  Jesus  after 
His  going  into  the  desert.  In  the  account  of  this  temp- 
tation, as  found  in  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke1,  it  does  not 
appear  that  Jesus  was  much  moved.  Not  so,  however,  for 
the  temptation  in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane2. 

The  latter  temptation  reveals  a  lively  struggle  between 
the  human  will  of  Christ  and  the  will  of  God.  At  its  close, 
He  says  to  his  Father  :  «  Not  as  I  will,  hut  as  Thou  wilt.  » 
Here  was  indeed  a  real  temptation,  determined  by  the 
prospect  of  the  ignominious  death  on  the  cross.  To  under- 
stand this,  we  must  bear  in  mind  the  nature  of  the  mystery 
of  the  Incarnation.  The  Word  of  God,  in  assuming  human 
nature,  took  a  nature  perfectly  subordinated  to  the  will 
which  is  His  own  as  Word  of  God,  and  which  is  the  same 
will  as  that  of  God  the  Father  Nevertheless,  the  instincts 
of  this  human  nature,  the  constitutional  and  essential  ins- 
tinct of  self  preservation,  could  not  be  entirely  submerged; 
and  when  facing  death,  those  instincts  were  bound  strongly 
to  make  themselves  felt,  so  that  only  by  the  powerful  in- 
tervention of  the  Savior's  divine  will  could  they  be  over- 
come. This  explains  very  well  the  prayer  that  Christ  offered 
up  to  His  heavenly  Father  :  «  Not  my  will,  but  Thine  be 
done.  » 

Impeccability  and  Liberty.  —  Christ  is  truly  God  and 
has  a  truly  human  will.  This  doctrine  was  defined  by  the 
Church  in  her  struggles  against  Eutyches  and  the  Monothe- 
lites.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have  the  dogma  of  the  Re- 
demption, viz.  through  themeritsof  His  sufferings  and  death, 
Christ  redeemed  the  world.  Now,  if  Christ  has  a  human 
will,  and  if  He  merited  our  salvation,  it  follows  necessarily 


1.  MAT.,  iv.  —  LUKE,  iv. 

2.  MAT.,  xxvi,  36-42.  —  MARK,  xiv,  32-41.—  LUKE,  XXH,  39-iG. 


244  GOD. 

that  His  will  is  free.  Though  this  point  has  not  been  de- 
fined, it  follows  necessarily  from  two  dogmas  that  have 
been  defined. 

How,  then,  are  we  to  reconcile  Christ's  impeccability 
with  the  freedom  of  His  will?  We  may  observe  first,  that 
the  difficulty  lies  not  in  the  reconciliation  of  the  two  terras 
liberty  and  impeccability.  There  is  no  doubt  that  it  is  the 
conflict  between  good  and  evil,  experienced  by  all  of  us, 
that  throws  most  light  upon  the  fact  of  the  freedom  of  our 
will.  We  must,  however,  admit  that  the  power  to  commit 
sin,  the  power  to  choose  evil,  is  due  to  an  imperfection  in 
our  will.  The  more  reasonable  our  will,  the  more  untram- 
meled  it  is  by  passion  and  the  lower  instincts,  the  freer  it 
is.  WTe  can  conceive  of  a  liberty,  the  exercise  of  which 
\vould  consist  in  the  choice  between  two  good  acts,  the  two 
differing  merely  in  degree  of  goodness.  Such  is,  in  its  ideal 
perfection,  the  liberty  of  God;  such,  too,  in  its  relative  per- 
fection, is  the  freedom  of  the  saints,  who  are  all  the  freer 
for  their  greater  sanctity;  and  such  was  the  freedom  of 
Our  Lord.  In  common  with  the  freedom  of  God's  will,  it 
has  this  element,  that  its  choice  is  limited  to  good;  in  com- 
mon with  man's  will  it  has  this,  that  the  impeccability 
enjoyed  by  it  is  not  essential  or  natural  to  it,  but  is  gran- 
ted to  it  merely  by  virtue  of  the  relation  existing  between 
it  and  the  Word,  to  which  it  was  joined  by  the  hypostatic 
union. 

Here,  then,  is  where  the  problem  lies.  Christ  received 
from  the  Father  the  order  to  die  for  the  world,  either 
freely  or  under  compulsion,  that  is  by  necessity.  If  He 
accepted  it  freely,  it  would  seem  that  He  might  have  re- 
fused, and  thereby  have  disobeyed  God.  Where  then  would 
be  impeccability?  On  the  other  hand,  if  His  choice  was  not 
free,  but  necessary,  there  was  no  merit  in  His  death.  And 
then  what  becomes  of  the  Redemption?  It  would  appear, 
then,  that  we  must  deny  either  the  one  or  the  other  ot  these 
suppositions,  and  consequently  either  impeccability  or  the 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  243 

Redemption.  The  Church,  holding  both  ends  of  the  chain, 
leaves  it  to  theologians  to  find  the  links  that  join  the  ends. 
They  have  not  suffered  the  task  to  go  unattempted.  There 
are  no  less  than  seventeen  different  solutions  offered*.  Of 
these  we  shall  examine  only  the  principal  and  most  author- 
ized ones. 

First  Solution.  — According  to  Petau,  the  order  which 
the  Savior  obeyed  was  not  a  rigorous  precept  but  merely  a 
paternal  wish,  which  Christ  could,  without  sin,  have  declined 
to  comply  with 2. 

This  opinion  has  in  its  favor  the  words  of  St.  John, 
verified  by  the  Savior's  whole  life  :  «  I  do  always  the  things 
that  please  my  Father  »  3.  Yet,  if  we  examine  atlenlively 
the  doctrine  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  we  shall  find  it  unmis- 
takably set  forth  that,  from  beginning  to  end  of  His  Gospel, 
Jesus  always  said  that  He  had  been  sent  to  save  the  world, 
and  that  He  foresaw  and  accepted  the  bloody  death  of  the 
cross  as  a  duty,  as  a  charge  of  His  Messianic  mission. 

Second  Solution.  —  Accord  ing  to  Suarez,  Christ  did  not 
from  the  first  receive  the  command  to  die.  God  the  Father 
proposed  to  him  different  ways  to  redeem  the  world,  and 
the  Savior,  of  His  own  accord  chose  death  as  the  most  efficient 
means,  especially  to  show  men  the  horror  with  which  sin 
should  inspire  them.  But  once  the  Savior  had  chosen  death, 
God  the  Father  made  this  means  of  salvation  the  object  of  a 
rigorous  precept  4. 


1.  Cf.  Ch.  Pescii,  De  Verbo  incarnato,  prop.  xxvi. 

2.  De   Inc.,  1.  IX,  ch.  vm,  n°  G  :  Prxceplum  illud  et  mandalum,  quod 
Christo  Pater  edidisse  dicitur,  velul   de  perferendis  suppliciis,  ac  luenda 
morle,  non  absolutum  imperium  videri  fuifse,  sed  simplicem  significationem 
consilii,  ac  voluntatis  sux,  qua  multa  illi  proponebal  Paler  ad  humanam 
recuperandam  salutem  remcdia  :  ex  quibus  quod  vellet  eligeret,  adco  ut 
quidquid  ex  omnibus  capesseret,  id  sibi  gralum  esse,  ac  placere  monstraret 
proindeque  mandante  se  ac  prxcipienle  faceret. 

3.  JOIIIH,  viu,  29. 

4.  SUAREZ,  De  Inc.,  disp.  XXXVII,  sect.  4,  note  9. 


246  GOD. 

There  is  no  serious  objection  to  this  opinion;  yet,  it 
must  be  admitted,  as  Cardinal  de  Lugo  points  out,  that  such 
a  quasi-contract  between  the  Father  and  our  Savior  seems 
very  strange  indeed  j.  We  might  add,  also,  that  this  opinion 
does  not  seem  to  be  any  too  strongly  corroborated  by  the 
testimony  of  the  New  Testament,  according  to  which,  Christ 
seems  to  have  considered  His  bloody  death  as  the  goal  of  His 
mission. 

Third  Solution.  —  Vasquez  of  course  gives  a  different 
solution.  According  to  him,  the  Savior  was  free  in  carrying 
out  the  precepts  He  had  received,  particularly  that  of  dying 
on  the  cross  for  the  salvation  of  the  world.  Though  He  could 
not  refuse  to  accept  death,  He  was  free  to  submit  to  it  for 
such  or  such  motives,  He  could  die  at  such  or  such  a  time, 
and  could  have  in  His  obedience  more  or  less  intense  senti- 
ments 2. 

This  opinion  takes  info  account  the  fact  that  Christ  always 
regarded  death  as  a  duty  imposed  upon  Him;  but  unhappily 
it  places  all  of  Christ's  merit  in  the  bare  accomplishment  of 
the  circumstances  of  His  death. 

Fourth  Solution.  —  The  majority  of  the  other  theo- 
logians find  in  the  opposition  which  seems  to  exist  between 
the  Savior's  impeccability  and  His  free  will,  only  the  general 
difficulty  found  in  reconciling  freedom  with  efficacious 
grace  3.  By  reason  of  the  hypostatic  union,  there  is  due  to 
the  sacred  humanity  of  Christ  an  uninterrupted  flow  of 
efficacious  grace,  which  must  unfailingly  determine  His  will 
1o  choose  good,  and  that  of  the  highest  order.  The  Savior's 
state  may  be  compared  with  the  state  of  a  man  very  high  in 
sanctity.  The  greater  his  satictiSy,  the  more  does  efficacious 


1.  De  LUGO,  De  Inc.,  clisp.  XXVI,  sect.  8,  n.  100. 

2.  VASQUBZ,  disp.  LXX1V,  chap.  v. 

3.  See  the  list  of  these  authors  in  PESCU,  loc.  oil. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  247 

grace  support  him  and  prevent  his  falling.  Now,  the  Savior 
was  all  holy;  nay,  His  humanity  was  so  united  to  the  Word 
of  God  that  it  was  no  longer  its  own,  but  the  Word's,  to  whom 
it  belonged.  In  Him,  efficacious  grace  \vas  such  that  it  ren- 
dered sin  practically  impossible,  and  even  rendered  impos- 
sible the  practical  power  to  commit  sin.  Yet,  just  as  in  a 
saint,  be  his  perfection  what  it  may,  grace  and  free  will 
subsist  side  by  side,  so  in  Christ,  we  find  eminent  sanctity 
together  with  the  efficacious  grace  through  which  it  worked, 
in  no  way  affecting  the  freedom  of  His  will. 

The  Miraculous  Conception  of  Christ.  —  God  is  a  spirit ; 
God  is  sanctity  itself.  If  He  deigned  to  unite  Himsel  to  flesh, 
He  willed  also  that  the  flesh  to  which  He  was  to  be  hyposta- 
tically  united  should  be  wholly  free  from  sin  and  concupis- 
cence, and  that  it  should  be  impeccable.  He  chose  to  have 
the  wroman  who  was  to  conceive  Him  exempted  from  original 
sin  and  from  concupiscence.  Nay,  further,  God  required 
that  the  sacred  humanity  of  the  Savior  be  conceived  in  Mary's 
womb  through  the  operation  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Such  is 
the  dogma  of  the  miraculous  conception  of  Christ.  We  find 
it  first  in  the  Creed  of  the  Apostles1  and  in  the  Niceno- 
Constantinople  Creed  2.  The  definition  was  later  renewed, 
especially  by  the  Lateran  council 3. 

Traditional  Views.  —  To  prove  the  thesis  of  the  miracu- 
lous conception  of  our  Savior,  it  has  long  been  the  custom 
to  reason  as  follows  :  -  * 

The  fruit  of  the  promise  should  not  be  born  according 
to  the  natural  course  of  human  generation.  In  proof  of  this 
assertion,  appeal  is  made  to  Holy  Writ,  where,  it  is  claimed, 
this  wonderful  fact  is  foreshadowed,  in  the  beginning  of 


1.  I)i,\/.,  6. 

2.  DENZ.,  80. 
3. 


218  GOD. 

Israel's  history,  by  the  quite  miraculous  event  of  the  birth 
of  Isaac  *;  in  the  same  period,  by  the  miraculous  birth  of 
the  last  two  judges2;  in  the  miraculous  conception  of  Emma- 
nuel, of  whom  Isaias  speaks  3 ;  and  at  the  end  of  the  history 
of  Israel,  in  the  miraculous  birth  of  John  the  Baptist4. 
Thence  we  turn  to  the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy,  whence  it  is 
not  difficult  to  draw  proofs  of  the  miraculous  manner  of  the 
conception  of  Jesus  5. 

Very  clear  testimony  of  this  fact  is  found  in  the  Tradition 
of  the  Fathers.  «  Mary's  virginity  »,  says  St.  Ignatius  of 
Antioch,  writing  about  the  year  106,  «  her  pregnancy,  and 
likewise  the  Savior's  death,  are  three  mysteries  loudly  pro- 
claimed indeed  to-day,  but  they  took  place  in  the  silence  of 
God  6.  In  his  Dialogue  with  Trypho,  St.  Justin  sets  up  a 
parallel  between  Eve  and  the  Blessed  Virgin.  The  one, 
though  a  virgin  and  intact,  conceived  the  word  of  ihe  ser- 
pent and  thereby  engendered  disobedience  and  death ; 
whereas  the  other  received  joy  and  peace  when  the  angel 
Gabriel  brought  her  the  good  tidings  that  the  Holy  Ghost 
would  come  upon  her,  and  the  virtue  of  the  Most  High  would 
overshadow  her  7.  If  Christ  were  the  son  of  Joseph,  asks 
St.  Irenaeus,  wherein  would  He  differfrom  other  men?  How 
could  Peter  proclaim  Him  the  Son  of  the  living  God?  They 
whose  hope  lies  in  a  Jesus  engendered  by  Joseph  are  under 
the  curse  of  Jechonias  and  his  line.  As  Adam  was  formed 
from  a  virgin  clay  by  God,  so  Christ  was  formed  from  a  virgin 
Mother  8.  And  St.  Augustine  says  that  if  Christ  escaped  our 
hereditary  taint,  it  was  only  because  he  was  conceived  in  a 


1.  Gen.,  xvm,  10-14. 

2.  Judges,  wu.  —  /  Kings,  \ ;  11,  20. 

3.  Is.,  TII,  14-17. 

4.  LUKE,  i,   13. 

5.  MAT.,  i,  18.  —  LUKE,  i,  2G-33. 

6.  Ad  Ephes.,  xix. 

7.  Dial.,  LXXXIV. 

8.  Ilaer.,  1.  Ill,  xxi,  1-10. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  249 

miraculous  way  '.  Mary  remained  a  virgin  in  conceiving 
and  in  child-bearing-;  she  was  ever  a  virgin  :  Concipiens  virgo, 
par  tens  virgo,  virgo  r/ravida,  virgo  feta,  virgo  perpetua-. 

Then  is  adduced  the  reason  of  fitness,  drawn  from  the 
comparison  which  St.  Paul  makes  betwen  Adam  and  our 
Savior.  Just  as  the  Holy  Ghost  animated  the  dust  of  the 
earth,  to  make  of  it  the  first  man,  so  was  the  formation  of  the 
second  Adam,  like  unto  other  men  in  all  things,  save  sin 
alone,  brought  about  in  a  manner  differing  from  that  usually 
followed.  The  second  Adam,  however,  had  to  be  of  the  same 
race  as  the  first,  for  his  it  was  to  restore  what  the  first  Adam 
had  destroyed.  Hence  the  manner  of  conception  determined 
by  God.  Into  the  substance  given  by  the  mother,  who  was 
of  the  race  of  Adam,  the  Holy  Ghost  placed  a  germ,  from 
which  was  to  spring  the  sacred  humanity  of  Christ.  By  this 
miraculous  conception,  Jesus  belonged  indeed  to  the  race  of 
Adam;  but,  like  the  first  man's,  His  humanity  was  the  result 
of  a  very  special  act  on  the  part  of  the  Almighty. 

Rationalistic  View.  —  That  this  reason  of  fitness  is  very 
lofty,  that  the  testimony  of  Tradition  is  perfectly  clear,  that 
the  foreshadowings  of  the  Old  Testament  are  justly  inter- 
preted, Rationalists  are  perfectly  willing  to  admit.  But 
they  object  that  the  whole  theology  of  the  question  is  built 
upon  the  doctrine  of  the  extraordinary  conception  of  Jesus, 
as  contained  in  the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy,  the  historic 
character  of  which  they  deny,  as  well  as  the  very  fact  of 
Christ's  miraculous  conception. 

First  Objection.  —  There  is,  it  is  objected,  a  striking 
discrepancy  between  the  account  of  St.  Matthew  and  that 
of  St.  Luke.  The  former  tells  of  the  adoration  of  the  Magi 
and  of  the  flight  into  Egypt,  and  represents  St.  Joseph  as 


1.  Enchirid.,  XXXVH-XI.I. 
1.  Sermo  CI.XXXTI,  1. 


250  GOD. 

the  foster-father  of  Jesus;  the  latter,  after  declaring  in  his 
prologue  that  his  narrative  contains  only  what  he  found 
after  diligently  examining  all  things  from  the  beginning,  is 
silent  ahout  the  Magi  and  the  flight  into  Egypt,  and  speaks  of 
St.  Joseph  simply  as  the  father  of  Jesus.  Such  discrepancy 
is  enough  to  render  these  accounts  void  of  all  historic  value. 

Answer  to  First  Objection.  —  St.  Matthew,  say  the 
objectors,  makes  St.  Joseph  the  adoptive  father  of  Jesus, 
St.  Luke  the  real  father;  and  they  hold  this  a  palpable 
contradiction.  Their  statement  is  not  exact.  No  doubt  but 
St.  Matthew  shows  clearly  that  St.  Joseph  is  not  the  father 
of  Jesus,  when  he  speaks  of  the  worries  that  Joseph  suffered; 
but  St.  Luke's  words  are  hardly  less  clear,  when  he  speaks 
of  the  anguish  that  Mary  suliered.  And,  moreover,  the 
manner  in  which  St.  Luke  says  that  Joseph  is  the  father 
of  Jesus,  is  far  from  being  equivalent  to  an  affirmation  of 
fatherhood,  properly  so-called.  What  he  says  is  that  St. 
Joseph  was,  as  it  was  believed,  the  father  of  Jesus.  And 
there  is  no  authority  for  suppressing  the  words  «  as  it  was 
believed  »,  for  they  are  found  in  all  manuscripts. 

St.  Matthew,  they  say,  gives  an  account  of  the  journey 
of  the  Magi  and  of  the  flight  into  Egypt,  whereas  St.  Luke, 
though  he  declares  that  he  has  diligently  looked  into  all 
things  from  the  beginning,  does  not  mention  either  of  these 
facts;  and  in  this  they  see  a  remarkable  opposition. 

But  this  omission  in  St.  Luke  is  readily  accounted  for 
by  saying  simply  that  he  knew  nothing  of  these  incidents. 
And,  even  if  we  suppose  that  he  did  know  of  them,  the 
historical  purpose  by  which  he  seeins  to  have  been  guided, 
would  be  enough  to  account  for  their  suppression.  St. 
Luke's  object  in  the  Acts  is  easy  to  discern.  His  purpose 
is  to  show  how  the  Gospel,  received  at  Jerusalem,  first 
spread  through  the  different  parts  of  Palestine,  and  then 
found  its  way  into  Syria,  Asia  Minor,  Macedonia,  Athens, 
and  Rome.  He  wishes  to  show  how  Christianity,  though 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  251 

it  sprang  from  a  Jewish  source,  was  to  spread  through 
Greek  civilization,  and  thence  through  Roman.  Or,  to  put 
it  in  a  few  words,  his  plan  is  to  show  the  spread  of  Christ- 
ianity. Such  a  plan  compels  him,  of  necessity,  either  to 
slight  or  to  pass  over  entirely  certain  details;  and  the  fact 
is  that  if  we  compare  closely  the  Acts  and  the  Epistles  of 
St.  Paul,  we  shall  find  a  number  of  details  so  slighted  or 
entirely  omitted.  In  the  principal  part  of  his  Gospel,  St. 
Luke  manifests  a  similar  concern.  His  object  there  seems 
to  be  to  show  how  Jesus,  after  preaching  the  Gospel  in 
Galilee,  was  led  to  carry  his  doctrine  into  Jerusalem.  He 
omits  a  number  of  facts,  with  which  he  must  have  been 
acquainted,  but  which  have  no  place  in  his  plan;  such,  for 
example,  is  the  trip  into  the  land  of  Tyre  and  Sidon1,  the 
journeys  that  Jesus  made  into  Jerusalem,  before  his  final 
entry2.  We  may  then  say  that  St.  Luke  followed  such  a 
plan  in  the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy;  and  that  if  he  omits  the 
account  of  the  adoration  of  the  Magi  and  of  the  flight  into 
Egypt,  it  is  because  the  narration  of  these  events,  quite  as 
well  known  to  him  as  to  St.  Matthew,  would  in  no  way 
further  his  general  purpose.  St.  Luke  wished  to  show  the 
growth  of  the  Infant  Jesus  in  silence  and  obscurity,  in 
obedience  to  his  parents  and  to  the  Law  of  God.  This 
explanation,  it  seems,  must  account  for  the  apparent 
discrepancies  between  the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy  as  given 
by  St.  Malthew  and  by  St.  Luke,  and  it  destroys  the 
arguments  upon  which  rests  the  denial  of  the  historic 
character  of  this  Gospel. 

Second  Objection.  —  Even  if  the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy 
be  accepted  as  historical,  Rationalists  still  further  object 
that  the  miraculous  conception  of  Christ  must  be  rejected 
as  being  merely  an  application  of  Alexandrian  Docetism. 


1.  Cf.  MAT.,  xv,  21-31.  —  MARK,  VH,  24-30. 

2.  Cf.  JOHN,  ii,  v,  vii. 


-252  GOD. 

Answer  to  Second  Objection.  —  Let  us  observe  that 
the  fact  of  the  miraculous  conception  seems  to  be  an 
inseparable  part  of  the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy,  for  it  is  around 
this  fact  that  all  other  facts  of  the  Gospel  are  grouped. 
The  conception  of  Jesus,  like  that  of  John  the  Baptist,  is 
announced  by  the  angel  Gabriel.  The  answer  that  the 
angel  gives  Mary,  and  the  signs  that  are  to  mark  the 
accomplishment  of  the  fact,  recall  the  answer  and  the 
predicted  signs  given  to  Zachary.  Mary  visits  Elizabeth  to 
impart  to  her  the  tidings  that  the  angel  brought;  and  Jesus 
is  manifested  by  John  the  Baptist,  who  is  filled  with  the 
Holy  Ghost  from  his  mother's  womb.  Zachary 's  Benediclns 
is  the  counterpart  of  Mary's  Magnificat.  Everything  that 
took  place  in  the  case  of  Jesus  was  manifested,  though  less 
splendidly,  in  the  circumstances  attending  the  birth  of  John 
the  Baptist.  From  his  very  birth,  John  the  Baptist  appears 
as  the  sign  announcing  the  birth  of  Jesus.  Hence  it  is 
impossible,  under  the  circumstances,  to  separate  the  mira- 
culous conception  of  Jesus  from  the  circumstances  that 
accompanied  the  conception  of  John  the  Baptist;  or,  -  -  a 
fact  which  amounts  to  the  same  thing  —  of  almost  the 
entire  Gospel  of  the  Infancy.  If  the  other  narratives  of  the 
Infancy  are  historic,  it  must  be  admitted  for  a  certainty 
that  this  one  is  also,  for  it  dominates  all  the  others. 

Third  Objection.  —  But,  comes  the  reply,  it  is  not  the 
miraculous  conception  of  Jesus  that  controls  the  other 
narratives;  it  is  these  narratives,  some  of  which  may  be 
historical,  that  have  given  rise  to  this  docetic  interpretation 
of  the  conception  of  Christ. 

Answer  to  Third  Objection.  —  In  this  objection  \ve 
find  it  implicitly  admitted  that  it  is  impossible  to  separate 
the  narrative  of  the  miraculous  conception  from  the  other 
narratives  contained  in  the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy.  Now,  it 
seems  that  this  whole  mass  of  narrative  is  of  Judaeo-Pales- 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  253 

tinian  origin,  and  that  it  is  related  in  no  way  to  the  Docetism 
of  Alexandria.  Perhaps  no  page  in  the  whole  New  Testament 
bears  so  clearly  the  stamp  of  the  Judaism  of  Palestine.  For 
the  family  of  Joseph,  just  as  for  the  family  of  Zachary, 
sanctity  consists  in  the  fulfilment  of  the  Law  of  God,  in 
making  pilgrimages  to  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  and  in 
waiting  for  the  Messias,  who  is  to  set  up  the  kingdom  of 
God  on  earth.  The  temple  is  still  standing,  and  no  one 
foresees  the  ruin  to  come.  All  these  are  clearly  the  marks 
of  a  Palestinian  author  of  the  first  century1. 

Conclusion.  —  The  Gospel  of  the  Infancy  can  be  nothing 
but  one  of  those  very  old  works  compiled  by  St.  Matthew 
and  St.  Luke,  from  the  first  disciples  of  our  Savior,  or 
from  those  who  later  lived  with  Mary  and  gathered  from 
her  own  lips  the  story  of  the  miraculous  birth  and  childhood 
of  her  diviue  Son.  It  must  be  granted,  therefore,  that  the 
narrative  is  truly  historical.  Hence,  the  traditional  view 
of  the  dogma  of  the  miraculous  conception  of  Christ  loses 
none  of  its  value  and  requires  no  changes. 

ARTICLE  II 
Christ's  Human  Knowledge. 

General  Idea.  —  Being  both  God  and  man,  the  Savior 
possessed  both  human  knowledge  and  divine  knowledge, 
just  as  He  possessed  a  human  nature  and  a  divine  nature,  a 
human  will  and  a  divine  will,  a  human  intelligence  and  a 
divine  one.  Christ's  divine  knowledge  is  infinite,  just  as 
the  knowledge  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  infinite. 


1.  Cf.  M.-J.  LACRANCE,  Le  recit  de  ienfance  de  Je'sut  dans  saint  Luc, 
Revue  biblique,  April  1895.  —  V.  Ross,  Studies  on  the  Gospels,  chap.  II, 
The  supernatural  conception.  —  A.  DIKAM>,  The  Gospel  of  the  Childhood. 


254  GOD. 

But  Christ's  human  knowledge,  like  all  things  created,  was 
finite.  Now  the  question  naturally  arises,  whether  this 
human  knowledge  attained  to  its  perfection  from  the  very 
beginning,  or  whether  there  was  some  progress  in  knowledge 
as  time  went  on;  and  if  the  latter  case  be  true,  in  what  this 
progress  consisted. 

In  studying  this  question  we  shall  first  have  to  take 
account  of  both  sides,  and  then  determine  which  opinion 
we  are  to  admit. 

§  I 

DOCTRINE    OF   THE    FATHERS 

Doctrine  of  the  Greek  Fathers.  —  «  It  is  not  because 
He  is  ignorant  that  the  Savior  asks  questions;  but  since  He 
has  taken  human  nature,  He  makes  use  of  all  that  is  natural 
to  man,  and  it  is  natural  to  man  to  ask  questions.  Christ 
merely  wished  to  conform  to  the  customs  of  men.  What  is 
there  astonishing  in  this1?  »  Origen  here  shows  that  he 
considered  absolute  ignorance  in  certain  matters  altogether 
out  of  keeping  with  the  Lord's  dignity. 

In  the  century  following,  the  question  of  Christ's 
knowledge  became  a  common  theme  in  Arian  polemics. 
Christ  asked  questions,  argued  Arius  and  his  disciples,  just 
as  do  men  who  seek  information;  he  said  that  he  did  not 
know  the  day  of  the  last  judgment;  and  St.  Luke  says  of 
him  that,  while  living  at  Nazareth,  «  he  grew  in  wisdom 
and  grace  »  2.  From  this  they  conclude  that  Jesus  did  not 
possess  all  wisdom,  and  consequently  that  he  was  not  God 
equally  with  the  Father. 

St.  Athanasius  answers  this  argument  by  saying  that 
Christ,  as  the  Word,  did  know  the  day  of  the  last  judgment; 


1.  ORIGEN,  Comment.  inMatlh.,  vol.  X,  14;  P.  G.,  XIII,  865. 

2.  LCKE  n,  52. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  255 

but  that  he  was  not  ashamed  to  confess  that  as  man,  hy 
reason  of  the  fact  that  he  had  taken  on  our  humanity,  he 
did  nut  know  this1.  For,  «  since  ignorance  is  just  as  much 
part  of  our  nature  as  is  hunger,  and  so  forth,  Christ  had  to 
show  that  in  His  humanity  He  had  man's  ignorance  :  first, 
in  order  to  prove  the  reality  of  His  human  nature;  and 
secondly,  in  order  that,  possessing  the  ignorance  of  men  in 
His  }>ody,  He  might  present  to  His  heavenly  Father  a  humanity 
delivered  and  purified  from  all  taints,  a  holy  and  a  perfect 
humanity  »  2.  Likewise,  says  the  holy  Doctor,  the  growth 
in  wisdom,  of  which  St.  Luke  speaks,  is  to  he  understood 


t.  Contra  Arianos,  or.  HI,  43;  P.  G.,  XXVI,  413-416  :  «  Now  why  it  was 
that,  though  He  Knew,  He  did  not  tell  His  disciples  plainly  at  that  time,  no 
one  may  be  curious  where  He  has  been  silent;  for  '  Who  hath  known  the  mind 
of  the  Lord,  or  who  hath  been  His  counsellor? '  Rom.,  xi,  34.  But  why,  though 
He  knew,  He  said,  '  no,  not  the  Son  knows '  this  I  think  none  of  the  faithful 
is  ignorant,  viz.,  that  He  made  this  as  those  other  declarations  as  iran  by  reason 
of  th*  flesh.  For  this  as  before  is  not  the  Word's  deficiency,  but  of  that  human 
nature  whose  properly  it  is  to  be  ignorant.  (OOSf  yap  oOSs  TO-JTO  iXdtiTwjia  TOU 
Arfyov  £<rriv,  «Ma  TYJ;  &6ptMtfatC  euaew;,  YJ;  iaTiv  tStov  xat  TO  ayvosiv).  And  this 
again  will  be  seen  by  honestly  examining  into  tin;  occasion,  when  and  to  whom 
the  Savior  spoke  thus.  Not  then  when  the  heaven  was  made  by  Him,  nor  when 
He  was  with  the  Father  Himself,  the  Word  '  disposing  all  things  ',  nor  before  He 
was  become  man  did  He  say  it,  but  when  '  the  Word  became  flesh  '.  On  this 
account  it  is  reasonable  to  ascribe  to  His  manhood  everything  which,  after  He 
became  man,  He  speaks  humanly.  For  it  is  proper  to  the  Word  to  know  what 
was  made,  nor  be  ignorant  either  of  the  beginning  or  of  the  end  of  these  (for  the 
works  are  His\  and  He  knows  how  many  things  He  wrought,  and  the  limit  of 
their  consistence.  And  knowing  of  each  the  beginning  and  the  end,  He  knows 
surely  the  general  and  common  end  of  all.  Certainly  when  He  says  in  the 
Gospel  concerning  Himself  in  His  human  character,  '  Father,  the  hour  is  come, 
glorify  Thy  Son  ',  it  is  plain  that  He  knows  also  the  hour  of  the  end  of  all  things, 
as  the  Lord,  though  as  man  He  is  ignorant  of  it,  for  ignorance  is  proper  to  man, 
and  especially  of  these  things.  Moreover  this  is  proper  to  the  Savior's  love  of 
man;  for  since  He  was  made  man,  He  is  not  ashamed,  because  of  the  fl<sli  which 
is  ignorant,  to  say  '  I  know  not ',  that  He  may  show  lhat  knowing  as  God,  He  is 
but  ignorant  to  the  flesh.  ('EiwiBri  yap  y£fov£v  avQpwJto;  oOx  iiraiff/.uvefat  6ia  Tf,v 
T»p/.a  T/T'  iTvooOoav  eljieiv  O'jx  otSa,  iva  fietifr  OTI  etoco;  w;  0eo;,  iyvoet  <rapxtxcZ>;). 
An  I  therefore  He  said  not,  '  no,  not  the  Son  of  God  knows  ',  lest  the  Godhead 
should  s-  em  ignorant,  but  simply,  '  no,  not  the  Son  '.  that  the  ignorance  might 
l)i-  ih"  Son's  as  born  from  among  men. 

2.  Ad  Ser.,  epist.  II,  9;  P.  G.,  XXVI,  624. 


256  GOD. 

as  referring  not  to  the  divine  wisdom  of  the  Savior,  but  to 
his  human  wisdom1. 

St.  Gregory  Nazianzene2,  St.  Gregory  of  Nyssa3  and  St. 
Cyril  of  Alexandria4,  all  held  the  same  opinion  as  did  St. 
Athanasius. 

Language  of  this  sort,  used  by  so  great  a  number  of  the 
Fathers,  was  not  without  producing  its  effect  upon  theo- 
logians, early  as  well  as  late.  On  this  point  Petau  justly  re- 
marks :  The  Fathers  give  utterance  to  these  opinions  rather 
by  way  of  conciliation  and  concession;  their  object  is  not  so 
much  to  give  expression  to  their  own  personal  views  of  the 
question,  as  to  press  incisive  arguments  against  the  Arians. 
For  the  time  being,  they  thought  it  enough  to  show  that 
the  words  of  the  Savior,  no  matter  how  interpreted,  mili- 
tated against  neither  His  divinity  nor  His  eternal  gener- 
ation 5.  The  fact  is  that  we  are  too  much  given  to  dragging 
patristic  texts  out  of  their  settings,  and  forgetting  the  cir- 
cumstances that  provoked  them.  Interpreted  as  they  should 
be,  in  the  light  of  the  heresies  of  their  day,  they  would  not 
be  nearly  so  astonishing  and  perplexing  to  us. 

Yet  this  solution,  we  must  admit,  seems  insufficient. 
Upon  closer  examination,  the  doctrine  of  the  Greek  Fathers 
on  the  knowledge  of  Christ  is  much  more  complex  that 
might  at  first  appear  on  the  surface.  After  the  opinion  just 
quoted,  St.  Athanasius  adds  that  the  progress  that  Jesus 
made  in  wisdom  consisted  in  a  «  fuller  manifestation  of  his 
divinity0  ».  St.  Gregory  Nazianzene  says  that  «  the  wisdom 
that  Christ  possessed  was  majiifcstedliiile  by  little. 7  »  And 


1.  Contra  Arianos,  oratio  III,  52. 

2.  Or.  XXX,  15;  P.  G.,  XXXVI,  124. 

3.  Adversus  Apollinarem,  24;  P.  G.,  XLV,  1176. 

4.  Quod  unus  sit  Christus;  P.  G.,  LXXV,  1331.  —  Contra  Theodoretum, 
anath.  IV;  P.  G.,  LXXVI,  416. 

5.  De  Incarnatione,  1.  XI,  c.  II,  n.  8). 

6.  Contra  Arianos,  or.  Ill,  52-53. 

7.  Or.  XLI1I,  38;  P.  G.  XXXVI,  548. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  257 

St.  Cyril  of  Alexandria  observes  that  the  Savior  «  manifested 
his  prerogatives  in  proportion  to  his  age  »,  or  that  «  he 
showed  more  wisdom  in  proportion  as  he  grew  older,  in  order 
to  conform  to  the  manner  of  man's  being1.  » 

There  seems  to  be  contradiction  here  between  the  first 
texts  and  those  that  follow.  In  the  first,  they  say  that  Christ 
as  man  was  subject  to  ignorance;  and  then,  in  the  others, 
they  say  that  Christ  as  man  knew  all  things,  but  that  He 
was  content  to  manifest  His  knowledge  only  in  proportion  to 
His  age.  That  there  is  more  than  apparent  contradiction  here, 
no  one  believes.  The  second  texts  are  just  as  truly  part  of 
the  Fathers'  views  as  are  the  first.  There  is  a  very  simple 
solution  of  the  apparent  difficulty.  There  is  not  the  slightest 
doubt  that  Christ  was  ignorant  of  many  things,  merely  as 
man,  that  is,  as  enlightened  by  purely  human  and  natural 
lights;  and  yet,  even  as  man,  He  knew  these  very  same  things 
by  the  supernatural  lights  in  which  His  humanity  partici- 
pated by  virtue  of  the  hypostatic  union;  and,  according  as 
His  age  and  circumstances  demanded,  He  learned  by  natural 
means  what  He  already  knew  supernaturally.  So  He  learned 
things  He  did  not  know  :  and  He  advanced  in  wisdom, 
but  in  a  very  special  manner,  a  manner  perfectly  suited  to 
the  dignity  of  the  Incarnate  Word.  This,  it  seems,  was  the 
thought  of  St.  Athanasius,  and  of  the  other  Fathers,  who  use 
expressions  like  those  of  Athanasius.  The  Fathers  outlined 
the  distinctions  which  were  later  to  be  made  by  the  Scho- 
lastics, who  recognized  in  the  human  soul  of  Christ  a  twofold 
knowledge,  one  supernatural,  the  knowledge  of  vision, 
which  is  an  infused  knowledge,  imparted  to  Christ  by  reason 
of  the  hypostatic  union;  and  the  other  a  purely  natural 
knowledge,  capable,  like  all  our  knowledge,  of  increase. 

Against  the  semi-Arians  who  perpetuated  the  traditions 
of  their  forerunners,  St.  John  Chrysostom  is  more  categoric. 


1.  Thesaurus,  assert,  ixvui;  /'.  G.,  LXXV,  428. 

T.   I.  17 


258  GOD. 

«  When  »,  he  writes,  «  the  Savior  says 'not  even  the  Son 
knows  Ihe  day  of  the  last  judgment',  it  is  to  prevent  the 
Apostles  not  only  from  knowing  it,  but  even  from  inquiring 
about  it.  That  this  was  the  spirit  in  which  He  spoke,  we 
have  proof  if  we  consider  how,  after  the  resurrection,  He 
repressed  the  excessive  curiosity  of  His  disciples.  Before 
that,  He  had  told  them  that  the  last  days  would  be  shown  by 
many  signs;  and  here,  He  tells  them  simply  that  it  is  not 
theirs  to  know  the  day  nor  the  hour.  It'  the  Sou  of  God  were 
ever  ignorant  of  that,  pray,  when  did  He  learn  it?  Gould  He 
learn  it  from  us?  But  dare  any  one  say  so?  He  knowrs  the 
Father,  and  that  as  intimately  as  the  Father  knows  the  Son; 
and  still  does  not  know  that  day!  And  besides,  the  Holy 
Ghost  searches  the  abyss  of  God.  And  he,  too,  ignorant  of 
that  day !  Not  only  does  He  know  the  day,  but  He  knows  also 
how  He  will  judge,  how  He  will  penetrate  into  the  inner- 
most recesses  of  our  hearts ;  and  yet  we  would  have  it  that 
He  is  ignorant  of  far  less  important  things.  If  all  things  were 
made  by  Him,  and  without  Him  was  made  nothing,  how 
could  He  be  ignorant  of  that  day?  He  that  made  the  ages, 
made  also  their  periods  and  their  days;  and  how  could  He 
be  ignorant  of  what  He  Himself  has  made  *?  » 

The  Latin  Fathers.  —  Among  the  Latin  Fathers,  some 
speak  in  very  much  the  same  way  as  St.  Athanasius.  If 
Christ  showed  some  ignorance,  says  St.  Hilary,  if  He  su  !ered 
hunger  and  thirst,  if  He  wept,  this  could  take  place  only  in 
His  humanity 2.  And  St.  Fulgentius  argues  from  this  fact 


1.  In  Matth.,  homil.  XLX1I,  1 ;  P.  C.,  LVII1,  703.) 

2.  De  Trinitate,  1,  IX,  15;  P.  L.,  X,  342  :  Non  ergo  quia  nescire  xe  diem 
et  momentum  Fillus  dicit,  nescire  cndendus  est,  sicutineque  cum  secundum 
hominem  aut  flet,  out  dormit,  uitt  tristis  est.  Deus  obnoxius  ease  ant  lacry- 
mis  aut  timori,  aut  somno  est  confilendus;  sed  snlva  UnigcnUimse  veritnte, 
secundum  carnis  infirmitatem,  fletum,  somnum,  inediam,  sitim,  lax.situdi- 
nem,  metum  pari  necesse  est  secundum  hominem  natura,  diet  atque  home 
professus  esse  intelligatur  inscientiam. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  259 

that  Christ  displayed  some  lack  of  knowledge  in  order  to  show 
that  He  had  a  human  soul1.  Such  language  was  prompt- 
ed by  the  same  apologetic  reasons  as  prompted  the  Greek 
Fathers,  and  it  must  be  explained  in  the  same  way.  St. 
Ambrose  is  aware  that  from  his  own  times  many  held  that 
Christ  as  man  lacked  altogether  the  knowledge  of  certain 
things.  But,  for  Him,  this  lack  of  knowledge  was  only  ap- 
parent 2. 

The  majority  of  the  Latin  Fathers  adopted  the  very 
definite  language  of  St.  John  Chrysostom.  If  the  Gospel 
speaks  of  advance  in  the  human  knowledge  of  our  Lord, 
this  can  but  refer  to  the  successive  manifestations  of  a  know- 
ledge supernatural  and  perfect  from  the  beginning.  St.  Au- 
gustine has  some  very  pronounced  views  on  this  point.  What 
the  Apostles  were  not  supposed  to  know,  Christ  said  that  He 
Himself  did  not  know  :  He  professed  to  know  only  what 
they  had  a  right  to  know 3. 

In  the  human  soul  of  our  Lord  there  was  no  ignorance, 


1.  Ad  Trasim.  reg.,  1.  I,  8;  P.  I.,   LXX,  231. 

2.  De  fide,  \.  V,  220  :  Mavull  enim  Dominus  nimio  in  discipulos  amorc 
propensus,   potentibus  his  quae  cognUti  inutilia  judicaret,  vider  ignoiare 
quodnoverat,  quamnegare;  plusque  amatnoslram  utilitatem  instruere  quam 
suam  potenliam  demo  its  I  rare.  221.  Sunt  tamen  pleriqu?  non  ila  timidiores 
ut  ego ;  malo  alta  timere,  quam  sapere  :  sunt  (amen  plerique  eo  freti  quod 
scriplum  est  :  EL  Jesus  proficiebat  aetate  et  sapientia  et  gratia  apud  Deum 
et  homines  (LUKE,  n,  52),  qui  dicant  confidenter  quod  secundum  divinitatem 
quidem  ea  quae  futura  sunl,  vjnorare  non  potuit,  sed  secundum  noslrae  con- 
ditionis    assumptioner/i   iynorare   se   quasi    Filiutn  hominis  ante  crncem 
dixit...  222.  Filius  qui  cum  hominibus  conversatus  eit,  et  hominem  egit,  et 
carnem  suscepit,  nostrum  assumpsit  afj'ectum,  ut  nostra  ignoratiovc  nescire 
se  diceret  non  quia  aliquid  ipse  nescircl :  nam  etsi  homo  in  veritate  corporis 
videbatur,  erat  tamen  vita,   erat  lux,  et  virtus  exibat  de  eo  quae  vulnera 
sauciorum  maje.tlalis  suac  auctoritate  sanabat. 

3.  De  Trinitate,  1.  I,  xii;  P.  L.,  XLII,  837:  tloc  enim  nescil,  quod  nes- 
cientes  facit,  idlest,  quod  non  ita  sciebat  ut  tune  discipulis  indicaret :  sicut 
dictum  est  ad  Abraham: «  .\unc  cognovi  quod  timeas  Deuin  •  .  (Gen.  xxn,  12), 
id  est,  nunc  feet  nt  cognosce  icx,  quia  et  ipse  sibi  in  ilia  tentatione  proba- 
tes innotuil...  Hoc  ergo  inter  illos  nesciebat,  quod  per  ilium  scire  non  pote- 
rat.  Et  hoc  solum  se  scire  dicebat,  quod  eos  per  ilium  scire  oportebat. 


260  GOD. 

because  His  soul  was  united  to  the  Word  and  enjoyed  perfect 
knowledge  from  the  very  beginning  l. 

Such  was  the  view  of  nearly  all  the  contemporaries  of  the 
bishop  of  Hippo,  at  least  in  the  Western  Church.  This  fact 
is  made  evident  by  the  condemnation  of  Leporius,  a  monk 
who,  in  4*27,  taught  among  other  errors  that  Christ  was 
subject  to  ignorance.  St.  Augustine  made  this  monk  sign  a 
retraction,  and  in  this  he  ackowledged  having  taught  that 
Christ,  in  so  far  as  He  was  man,  suffered  human  ignorance. 
Then  he  professed  to  reject  and  anathematize  his  old  teaching, 
since  ignorance  was  impossible  in  the  human  intellect  of  Him 
who  had  enlightened  the  prophets.  This  document  was 
approved  and  signed  by  five  bishops  from  the  North  of 
Africa  or  the  South  of  Gaul 2. 

The  Agnoetae.  —  The  Greek  Fathers,  as  well  as  the  Latin 
Fathers,  taught,  as  we  have  seen,  that  Christ,  as  man,  had 
from  the  beginning  supernatural  knowledge  in  all  its  fulness, 
but  that  His  natural  knowledge  was  capable  of  increase.  By 
human  means,  then,  the  Savior  learned  what  before  He 
had  known  only  by  reason  of  His  supernatural  knowledge ; 
thus,  to  men ,  He  manifested  a  certain  lack  of  knowledge  and 
a  certain  progress  in  knowledge. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century,  certain  Monophy- 
sites,  with  Themistius  at  their  head,  launched  the  opinion 
that  Christ  \vas  absolutely  ignorant  of  the  day  of  the  final 
judgment.  These  men  were  called  Agnoetae3. Theirs  was  a 
strange  doctrine  indeed.  Had  they  been  pure  Monophy- 
sites,  they  should  have  admitted  that  in  Christ  the  human 
nature  was  absorbed  by  the  divine;  and  consequently,  far 


2.  l>e  peccalorum  mentis,  1.  II,  48;  P.  L.,  XLIV,  180  :  Quam  plane 
ignorantiam  nullo  modo  crediderim  fuisse  in  infante  illo,  in  quo  Verbum 
ca.ro  factum  est,  ut  habitaret  in  nobis,  nee  illam  ipsius  animi  infirmilatem 
in  Chrislo  pnrvulo  fuerim  suspicatus,  quam  videmus  in  parvulis. 

2.  Liber  emendiationis,  10;  P.  L.,  XXXI,  1230. 

3.  Cf.  A.  VACANT,  art.  Agnoetes,  in  the  Diet,  de  the'ol.  cath. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  261 

from  lessening  the  Savior's  prerogatives,  they  should  have 
exalted  them.  But  pure  Monophysites  they  were  not;  they 
held  that  Christ's  nature  was  a  mixture  of  the  human  and 
the  divine,  and  that  it  was  susceptible  to  corruption  in  the 
flesh  and  to  ignorance  in  the  intellect. 

Eulogius,  Patriarch  of  Alexandria,  issued  a  refutation 
against  Themistius,  in  a  tract  entitled  «  Against  the 
Agnoetae  ».  In  this  tract,  he  maintained  that  our  Savior's 
humanity,  since  it  is  hypostatically  united  to  the  Word  of 
God,  is  ignorant  of  things  neither  present  nor  future1. 
St.  Gregory  the  Great  wrote  Eulogius  a  letter,  congratulating 
him  on  his  treatise  against  the  Agnoetae  2.  In  a  second 
letter  to  Eulogius,  St.  Gregory  drew  up  the  distinction  which 
should  have  guided  the  Fathers  of  the  fourth  and  fifth 
centuries,  and  would  have  prevented  them  from  making 
such  apparently  contradictory  statements.  Christ,  said 
Gregory,  knew  even  in  His  human  nature  the  day  of  the  last 
judgment ;  not,  it  is  true,  by  the  light  of  His  human  reason, 
but  by  supernatural  light 3. 

§  " 

SCHOLASTIC   THEOLOGY. 

Root  Principle-  —  In  order  to  show  just  what  was 
Christ's  knowledge,  St.  Thomas  started  with  this  principle  : 
If  the  Word  of  God  became  man,  He  must  have  taken  a  human 
nature  possessing  all  the  perfections  which  belong  to 


1.  There  is  a  brief  of  this  tract  in  PHOTIUS,  Riblio&.,cod.  ccxx;  P.  G.,  CIH, 
1081. 

2.  Epist.,  \.  X,  epist.  XXXIX;  P.  L.,  LXXVII,  1091. 

3.  Ibid.,  epist.  XXXIX  :  Incarnatus  Unigenitus  fact  usque  pro  nobis  homo 
perfectus,  in  nalura  quidem  humanitatis  novit  diem  et  horam  judicii,  sed 
tamen  hunc  non  ex  natura  humaniialis  novit.    Quod  ergo  in  ipsa  novit, 
quia  Deus  homo  faclus,  diem  et  horam  judicii  per  deitalis  suae  potentiam 
novit. 


262  GOD. 

humanity,  except  such  as  might  prove  contrary  to  the  ends 
of  the  Incarnation;  as,  for  example,  human  personality, 
exemption  from  suffering  and  death1.  This  principle  leads 
the  Holy  Doctor  to  the  distinction  between  the  two  kinds  of 
knowledge  in  Christ  :  the  one  possessed  by  virtue  of  His 
divinity  —  an  infinite  knowledge;  the  other  possessed  as 
man,  in  virtue  of  Christ's  human  intellect 2.  It  is  this  latter 
principle  which  St.  Thomas  discusses. 

The  Beatific  Vision.  —  In  His  human  intellect,  Christ 
must  have  been  endowed  with  all  the  gifts  which  a  human 
intellect  is  capable  of  receiving.  Now  this  consisted  in  the 
supernatural  order,  first,  of  the  immediate,  the  intuitive, 
the  direct  vision  of  God.  This  knowledge  produces  infinite 
happiness  in  the  will ;  it  is  called  the  beatific  vision. 

Christ's  human  intellect  received  this  knowledge  in  an 
eminent  degree3,  and  from  the  very  beginning4.  Hence, 


1.  This  principle  sums  up  the  four  articles  of  the  Summa  theol.,  Ill",  q.  v. 
Suarez  puts  it  in  this  way  :  Anima  Christi  aprincipio  habuit  omnem  perfec- 
tionem,  cujus  carentia  necessaria  aut  utilis  non  fuit  ad  nostrum  Redemp- 
lionem.    De  Inc.,  disp.  XXXII. 

2.  Sum.  theol.,  Ill',  q.  ix,  a.  1  :  Non  autem  fuit  conveniens  quod  Filius 
Dei  humanam  naturam  imperfectam  assumeret,  sed  perfectam,  ulpote  qua 
mediante  totwn  humanum  genus  ad  perfectum  erat  reducendum.    Et.  idea 
oportuit  quod  anima  Christi  esset  perfecta  per  aliquam  scientiam  praeter 
scientiam  divinam  :  alioquin  anima  Christi   esset  imperfectior  animabus 
aliorum  hominum. 

3.  Ibid.,  q.  x,  a.    4  :   Visio  divinae  essentiae  convenit  omnibus    beatis 
secundum  participationem  luminis  de.rivali  in  eos  a  fonte  Verbi  Dei.    Hinc 
autem   Verbo    Dei  propinquius  conjungitur  anima  Chrisli,  quae  est  unita 
Verbo  in  persona,  quam  quaevis    alia  creatura.    Et  ideo  plenius  recipit 
influential?},  luminis,  in  quo  Deus  videtur  ab  ipso  Verbo,  quam  quaecumque 
alia  creatura.     Et  ideo  prae  ceteris  creaturis  perfectius  videt  ipsam  primam 
veritatf-m,  quae  est  Dei  essentia. 

4.  This  conclusion,  altogether  in  accord  with  Ihe  doctrine  of  St.  Thomas, 
is  given  also  by  Suarez,  De  Inc..  disp.  XXV,  sect.  1,  n.  4  :  Christus  semper 
fuit  Filius  Dei  naturalis ;  ergo  haeres  ;  ergo  possessor;  neque  eniin  tempore 
indigebat  ad  fruendum  haereditate  ;  neque  interventura  erat  mors  Patris, 
ut  Filius  in  possessionem  mitteretur;  neque  propter  aeiatem  impediri  poterat, 
ut  supra  ostensum  est...    Non  est  credibile  divinam  personam  non  statim 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  263 

from  this  moment  His  intelligence  contemplated  the  divine 
Word  and  the  divine  essence,  and  that  in  a  higher  degree 
than  any  creature.  Nevertheless,  this  intellect  was  inca- 
pable of  comprehending  fully  the  divinity ;  for  God  alone 
can  have  an  adequate  knowledge  of  Himself '.  But  in  God, 
the  intellect  of  Christ  saw  all  beings,  past,  present,  and 
future 2. 

Infused  Knowledge.  —  By  infused  knowledge  is  meant 
a  knowledge  due  to  lights  of  a  preternatural  character, 
communicated  immediately  by  God.  There  are  two  kinds 
of  infused  knowledge  :  the  one  includes  knowledge  that 
man  cannot  attain  by  his  own  industry,  but  gets  solely  by 
preternatural  light;  the  other,  knowledge  which  man  might 
attain  by  himself,  but  which  in  fact  is  imparted  by  preter- 
natural light. 

The  Savior's  intellect  possessed  infused  knowledge,  at 
least  the  knowledge  of  the  first  kind 3.  It  was  not  enough  to 


ililasse  naturam  suam  omnibus  donis  gratiae  et  gloriae,  et  omnem  conlra- 
riamimperfectinnemab  anima  sua  abjecisse ;  carere  autem  felicitate  magna 
est  imperfeclio  quae  nee  nobis  erat  necessaria,  nee  divinam  personam 
decebat. 

1.  Sum.  thfol.,  Ill',  q.  x,  a.  1  :  Sic  facia  est  unio  nalurarum  in  persona 
Christi,  quod  lamen  proprietas  utriusque  naturae  inconfusa  permanserit, 
ita  scilicet  quod  increatum  manseril  increatum,  et  creatum  manseril  infra 
limites  creaturae.  Est  autem  impossibile  quod  aliqua  creatura  compre- 
hendat  divinam  essenliam.  to  quod  infinilum  non  comprehenditur  a  fi,nifn. 
Et  idea  dicendum  quod  anima  Christi  nullo  modo  comprcfiendit  divinam 
essentiam. 

The  council  of  Basle  (1435)  condemned  the  following  proposition  :  Anima 
( hristi  videt  Deum  lam  dare  el  intense  quantum  dare  et  intense  Deus  videt 
seipsum.  Cf.  M*NSI,  vol.  XXIX,  p.  109. 

2.  Ibid.,  a.  2. 

3.  As  to  the  infused  knowledge  of  the  second  degree,  called  knowledge 
infused  per  accident,  to  distinguish  it  from  infused  knowledge  of  I  he  first 
degree,  called  knowledge  infused  per  se,  &  great  many  theologians  hold  that 
Christ  obtained  infused  knowledge  of  the  lirst  degree  only.    They  hold  this 
opinion  because  infused  knowledge  of  the  second  degree  seems  to  be  hut  a 
duplicate  of  acquired  knowledge.    Cf.  Tuos.  An.,  sum.  Iheol.,  Ill*,   q.  u,  a. 


264  GOD. 

see  God,  and  in  Him  to  see  all  creatures,  by  the  beatific 
vision ;  but  it  was  fit  and  proper  that  Christ's  intellect  should 
know  these  beings  in  themselves,  and  by  the  light  that 
makes  them  intelligible  d. 

Through  this  knowledge,  our  Lord  had  all  the  knowledge 
which  the  angels  have  concerning  creatures  both  spiritual 
and  material ;  He  was  acquainted  with  the  entire  superna- 
tural economy  in  regard  to  the  work  of  the  Redemption;  He 
knew  all  that  men  can  know  by  revelation,  whether  by  the 
gift  of  prophecy  or  by  any  of  the  other  gifts  of  the  Holy 
Ghost. 

This  knowledge,  however,  was  not  completely  in  actu; 
it  was  merely  an  habitual  state,  and  was  actually  present  to 
the  Savior's  intellect  now  under  one  aspect,  now  under 
another,  according  as  he  willed  it2. 

Acquired,  or  Experimental  Knowledge.  —  Just  as  it 
was  fit  and  proper  that  Christ  have  the  most  perfect  human 
nature  possible,  so  also  was  it  becoming  that  He  have  the 
natural  faculties  of  man,  enabling  Him  to  gather  the  sensible 
data  of  things  in  the  material  world,  and  to  abstract  from 


3-i.  — VASQUEZ,  De  Inc.,  disp.  XLV,  c.  11.  —  Cn.  PESCH  concludes  his  exposi- 
tion of  this  question  by  saving  that  we  are  not  bound  to  hold  that  Christ  had 
infused  knowledge  of  the  second  degree,  infused  knowledge  per  accident  : 
Dicet  toiam  hanc  scientiam  per  accidens  infusam  negare.  Cf.  Christologia, 
sect,  vi,  prop.  XXI,  p,  132. 

1.  Sum  theol.,  Ill",  q.  ix,  a.  3  :Itap raeter  scientiam  divinam  etincreatam 
est  in  Christo  secundum  ejus  animam  scientia  beata,  qua  cognoscit  Verbum, 
el  res  in  Verbo ;  et  scientia  infusa,  sire  indita,  per  quam  cognoscit  res  in 
propria  natura  per  species  inlelligibiles  humanae  menti  proportionatas. 

2.  Ch.  PESCH,  Christ.,  sect,  vi,  prop,  xix,  p.  133  :  Non  quidem  putandum 
est  omnia  haec  objecta  semper  actu  praesentia  fuisse  menti  Christi  per 
scientiam  infusam,  quia  haec  objecta  non  apparent  in  aliquo  objecto  pri- 
mario,  in  quo  possint  unico  actu  omnia  cognosci,  neque  Christus  potuit  tot 
simul  aclus  fiabere  quot  sunt  objecta,    quia   hoc    virtutem  connaturalem 
creaturae  excedit.    Ergo  Christus  pro  voluntate  sua  modo  haec  modo  ilia 
objecta   considerabat,  et  quidem   probabilius  hi  actus  fiunt   per  modum 
simplicis  intelligentiae  sine  discursu  quia  haec  scientia  propter  suam  per- 
fectionem  non  indiget  discursu. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  265 

these  sensible  data  a  knowledge  of  these  material  things. 
Knowledge  so  acquired,  from  the  elaboration  of  sensible 
data,  is  called  acquired,  or  experimental  knowledge  *. 

Thus  it  was  that  Our  Lord  acquired  the  knowledge  of 
whatever  a  man  of  His  day  could  learn  experimentally2. 
Christ  learned  these  things  by  his  own  efforts,  unaided  by 
men3  or  angels,  and  that  with  the  greatest  facility4.  No 
matter  at  what  period  we  consider  Him,  He  knew  always, 
as  perfectly  as  could  be  known,  whatever  it  became  Him  to 
know.  In  this  sense,  the  acquired  knowledge  of  the  Savior, 
though  constantly  undergoing  development,  was  always 
perfect 5. 


1.  Sum  theol.,  IIIa,  q.  ix,  a.  4  :  Kihil  eorum  quae  Deus  innoslranulura 
plantavit,  defuit  humanae  naturae  assumplae  a  Dei  Verbo.  Manifestum 
est  autem  quod  in  humana  natura  Deus  plantavit  non  solum  intellectum 
possibilem,  sed  etiam  intellectum  agentem.  Unde  necesse  est  dicere,  quod 
in  anima  Christi  full  non  solum  intellects  possibilis,  sed  f.tiam  intellectus 
agens.  Si  autem  in  aliis  Deus,  ct  natura  niliil  frustra  faciunt  multo  minus 
in  anima  Chrisd  aliquid  fuit  frustra.  Frustra  autem  est  quod  non  [habet 
propriam  operationem;  cum  omnis  res  sit  propter  suam  operalionem. 
Propria  operatio  intellectus  agentis  est  facere  species  intelligibiles  ac.tu, 
abstrahendo  eas  a  phantasmatibus ;  unde  dicitur  in  1.  Ill  de  Anima  quod 
intellectus  agens  est  quo  est  omnia  facere.  Sic  igitur  necesse  est  dicere, 
quod  in  Christo  fuerint  aliquae  species  intelligibiles  per  actionem  intel- 
lectus agentis  in  inlellectu  possibili  ejus  receptae;  quod  est  esse  in  ipso 
scientiam  acquisitam,  quam  quidam  experimentalem  nominant. 

'1.  Sum.  theol.,  q.  XH,  a.  1. 

3.  Ibid.,  a.  3. 

4.  Il'id.,1.  4. 

5.  Ibid.,  a.  2  :  Quia  inconveniens  videtur  quod  aliqua  naturalis  actio 
inlelligibilis  Christo  deesset,  cum  extrakere  species  intelligibiles  a  phantas- 
matibus sit  quaedam  naturalis  actio  hominis  secundum  intellectum  agentem, 
conveniens  videtur   hanc  etiam  actionem  in   Christo  ponere.    Et  ex  hoc 
sequitur  quod  in  anima  Christi  aliquis  habitus  scientiae  fuerit,  qui  per 
hujusmodi  abstraclionem  specierum  potuerit  avgmentari;  ex  hoc  scilicet 
quod  intelfectus  agens  post  primus  species  intelligibiles  abstractas  a  phan- 
tasmatibus ])oterat  etiam  alias  et  alias  abstrahere. 

The  opinion  of  St.  Thomas  shifted  somewhat  on  this  point,  as  he  himself 
very  simply  acknowledges  in  the  body  of  the  article.  In  In  III  Sent.,  dist. 
xiv,  q.  i,  a.  3,  sol.  5,  ad  3um,  he  say*  that  Christ's  intellect  had  no  need  of 
forming,  by  its  own  action,  the  species  impressae  necessary  to  the  knowledge 
of  persons  and  things  aboat  Him,  for  these  species  impressae  were  infused. 


266  GOD. 

This  view  of  au  acquired  and  increasing  knowledge 
enables  us  to  explain  the  texts  of  the  Gospel  where  it  is 
question  of  ignorance  and  progress  in  the  knowledge  in  Our 
Savior's  soul. 


RATIONALISTIC  THEORIES  CONDEMNED 
BY   THE    CHURCH. 

Hermann  Schell's  Theology.  —  According  to  this  author, 
Christ  as  man  had  extraordinary  knowledge  due  to  natural 
lights,  but  singularly  strengthened  by  supernatural  lights. 
He  had  not,  however,  a  universal  knowledge.  Such 
knowledge,  Schell  held,  is  impossible  to  a  human  intellect, 
no  matter  how  perfect,  in  our  condition  here  below. 
The  human  brain  would  not  be  able  to  stand  so  rich  an 
intellectual  life. 

And  again,  if  we  admit  that  Christ's  human  intellect 
possessed  a  knowledge  of  all  things,  what  is  to  become  of 
acquired  knowledge,  if  all  His  knowledge  was  due  to  super- 
natural light?  The  Savior  would  then  merely  appear  to 
learn  what  He  already  knew.  Both  His  ignorance  and  His 
learning  would  have  been  but  apparent.  If  inspired  by  the 
desire  to  show  us  that  He  was  man,  such  pretense  on  the 
part  of  Christ  would  seem  strange  indeed  and  contrary  to 
the  divine  plan,  which  was  that  the  divine  Word  become 
man,  like  us  in  all  things  save  sin  alone.  Furthermore, 
Christ  Himself  said  that  He  did  not  know  the  day  or  the 
hour;  and  if  He  said  so,  it  must  be  that  He  really  did  not 
know. 

But  are  we  to  conclude  from  this,  asks  Schell,  that  the 
Savior's  knowledge  was  imperfect?  Not  at  all,  he  answers; 
this  would  be  a  gross  exaggeration.  The  one  thing  neces- 
sary, is  to  limit  Christ's  knowledge  «  economically  »  to  the 
mission  which  it  was  the  Savior's  purpose  to  fulfil  on  earth. 
At  any  time  in  His  life,  Christ  always  knew  what  it  was 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  267 

expedient  for  Him  to  know  in  order  to  fulfil  His  Messianic 
functions;  but  just  as  He  renounced  glory  in  becoming 
incarnate,  so  He  renounced  omniscience.  This  second  ren- 
unciation was  but  another  form  of  His  self-abasement  *. 

Criticism  of  this  Doctrine.  —  In  man,  thought  is  ex- 
ercised not  irrespective  of  the  brain.  If  Christ  was  a  man 
like  ourselves,  it  is  objected,  His  brain  would  not  have 
sufficed  to  so  extraordinary  a  knowledge.  In  other  words, 
the  brain  of  the  Child-Christ  could  not  accomodate  itself  to 
the  knowledge  of  vision  or  infused  knowledge,  especially  if 
wre  maintain  that  both  kinds  of  knowledge  were  perfect 
from  the  very  beginning.  This  difficulty  springs  from  a 
false  principle;  for,  as  remarks  de  Lugo,  the  beatific  vision 
and  infused  knowledge  are  not  operations  of  the  human 
compositum,  but  operations  of  the  soul  alone,  or  of  the  soul 
transformed  by  the  grace  of  God  and  having  attained  its 
fullest  development,  that  is,  of  the  soul  raised  up  by  pre- 
ternatural dispositions  and  preternatural  help.  The  soul  of 
the  Savior,  then,  and  much  more  the  soul  of  the  Child-Christ, 
was  capable  of  receiving  the  beatific  vision  and  infused 
knowledge  2. 

We  cannot  well  understand  the  theology  of  St.  Thomas 


1.  H.  SCHEL,  Kalholische  Dogmatik,  vol.  Ill,  pp.  142-147,  Paderborn,  1892- 
1893.  --    For  the  character  and    work  of  H.   Schell,  see  SCHMIED-MULLEH,  Un 
theologien  moderne  :  Hermann  Schell,  Annales  de  Philosophic  chretienne, 
Sept.  1906  and  Feb.  1907. 

2.  De  Inc.,  disp.  xxi,   sect,  i,  n°  5-11  :  Chrislus  non  habuit  regulariter 
ullam  operationem  humanam  nisi  dependenter  ab  organis  et  dispositionibus 
connaluralibus,  sicul  alii  homines:  nee  enim  ambulabat donee  habuit  organa 
bene  disposita,  nee  loquebatur  in  infantia...    Ergo  nee  habuit  operationem 
humanam  phanlasix  ante  organum  bene  dispoaitum;  ergo  nee  operationem 
intelligendi  quia  huec  tarn  pendet  a  phantasia  quam  phantasma  ab  oryinin 
disposito.    Dixi  operalionem  humanam  intelligendi,  ut  excludam  scientiam 
beatam  et   infusam  et   connaturalem  animx  teparatx;  hx  enim  non  sunt 
operatione.it  hominis  ut  hominis,  sed  operationes  animx  solius  independcnlcs 
omnino  a  materia. 


268  GOD. 

on  this  question,  we  are  told,  unless  we  take  his  point  of 
view,  which  is  quite  subjective  If,  says  the  Holy  Doctor, 
the  Word  is  made  flesh,  the  body  He  takes  must  possess  all 
the  perfections  compatible  with  the  ends  of  the  Incarnation. 
He  ought,  consequently,  to  have  the  beatific  vision,  infused 
knowledge,  and  acquired  knowiedge.  But,  let  us  observe 
again,  such  a  construction  must  necessarily  seem  artificial  to 
one  who  looks  at  the  question  from  the  objective  point  of 
view,  that  is  to  say,  from  the  point  of  view  of  known  facts. 
Is  it  necessary  that  the  human  intellect  of  Christ  should  know 
the  same  thing  in  so  many  ways?  Would  it  not  answer  all 
purposes  for  Him  to  know  it  in  a  single  wray,  be  that  what 
it  may? 

Such  an  objection,  though  at  first  sight  quite  specious, 
can  be  but  the  outcome  of  an  imperfect  knowledge  of  the 
theology  it  presumes  to  criticise.  If  we  make  a  clear  dis- 
tinction between  infused  knowledge  and  experimental  know- 
ledge, as  St.  Thomas  does,  and  this  we  must  do  if  we  claim 
that  Christ  did  not  possess  infused  knowledge  of  the  second 
degree  —  we  must  see  that  these  two  kinds  of  knowledge 
bear  upon  different  objects  altogether,  and  do  not  duplicate 
each  other.  There  is  no  doubt  but  the  Savior's  human  soul 
knows  by  His  knowledge  of  vision  all  that  He  knows  by  His 
infused  knowledge  and  from  His  experimental  knowledge. 
But,  as  St.  Thomas  says,  it  was  not  enough  that  Christ  see 
God,  and  in  God,  by  the  beatific  vision,  see  all  creatures ;  it 
was  fit  also  that  He  should  know  these  beings  in  themselves, 
and  by  the  light  which  makes  them  intelligible  1.  It  is  quite 
one  thing  to  see  beings  in  their  divine  ideal,  another  to 
see  them  in  themselves,  as  they  really  are.  There  would, 
then,  have  been  something  lacking  in  the  Savior's  know- 
ledge if  he  had  not  had  infused  knowledge  and  experimental 
knowledge  -. 


1.  Sum.  theol.,  III",  q.  ix,  a.  3. 

1.  \Ve  see  it  often  stated  that  St.  Bonavenlure  held  that  Christ's  human 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  269 

The  theology  of  St.  Thomas  seems  to  us  quite  satisfac- 
tory. In  propounding-  this  teaching,  the  Holy  Doctor  and 
his  disciples  did  not  pretend  to  rob  the  question  of  all  diffi- 
culties. Better  than  any  one,  perhaps,  they  understood  that 
if  it  is  so  hard  for  an  individual  to  know  himself,  it  would  be 
the  height  of  absurdity  for  them  to  attempt  to  penetrate  into 
the  dephts  of  the  human  soul  which  the  divine  Word  made 
His  by  the  hypostatic  union.  But  at  any  rate,  they  have 
explained  the  mystery  as  far  as  our  poor  reason  has  a  right 
to  seek  explanation;  and  after  all,  though  there  remains  in 
their  doctrine  «  enough  obscurity  for  those  who  are  not  wil- 
ling to  see  »,  there  is  :<  enough  light  for  those  who  really 
wish  to  see  3.  » 

The  Theory  of  Loisy.  —  The  starting  point  of  Loisy's 
theology  is  his  pet  theory  on  Christ's  teachings  about  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.  The  ordinary  object  of  the  preaching 
of  Jesus,  he  claims,  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven;  and  from  the 
view  point  of  this  kingdom  does  Christ  propound  all  his 
doctrines.  But  what  is  the  nature  of  this  kingdom? 

During  the  latter  half  of  the  last  century  before  Christ 
and  at  the  beginning  of  our  Christian  era,  men  were  looking 
for  some  frightful  upheaval  and  overthrow  of  the  social  and 
cosmological  order.  The  present  world  was  to  end,  and  a 
new  order  of  things  was  to  take  its  place.  This  was  to  be 
the  manifestation  of  the  justice  of  God  on  earth.  The  Mes- 
sias  was  suddenly  to  appear.  He  was  to  judge  the  people 
of  Israel  and  their  oppressors;  and  he  was  to  separate 


soul  had  not  infused  knowledge,  because  it  seemed  to  the  saint  that  this  know- 
ledge would  have  been  of  no  use.  We  have  carefully  perused  all  the  references 
given,  and  we  have  been  able  to  discover  no  such  statement  in  his  works. 
Here,  on  the  contrary,  is  what  tbe  holy  Doctor  asserts  :  Habitus  et  species 
impresses  fiterunl  ipsi  animx  Christiin  omnimoda plenitudine ;  hincest  quod 
Christus  proficere  non  potuit  cognitione  simp  lids  notitix  (serf  experientia 
tantum}.  In  III  Sent.,  dist.  nv,  a.  3,  q.  2. 
3.  PASCAL,  section  vu,  430. 


270  GOD. 

the  good  from  the  bad.  The  wicked  were  to  be  segreg- 
ated and  were  to  undergo  dire  punishment.  This  was  to 
mark  the  beginning  of  the  Messianic  Kingdom,  called  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  or  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  It  was  to 
be  the  new  theocracy,  far  superior  to  the  first,  and  gover- 
ned by  the  Messias  in  the  name  of  God.  The  kingdom 
was  to  extend  to  1he  limits  of  the  earth,  and  the  Gen- 
tiles were  to  be  called  to  form  part  of  it.  It  was  to 
belong  primarily,  however,  to  the  children  of  Abraham; 
and  Jerusalem  was  to  remain  the  center  of  the  religious 
world.  There  was  to  be  unlimited  material  prosperity, 
but  the  kingdom  was  to  be,  first  of  all,  one  of  holiness,  that 
is,  it  was  to  be  the  kingdom  of  the  life  of  God  in  the  hearts 
of  men.  Such  was  the  eschatological  kingdom  looked  for 
by  the  contemporaries  of  Christ.  It  bears  three  distinct  cha- 
racteristics :  First,  it  was  to  be  catastrophic,  that  is,  it  was  to 
be  brought  about  by  the  overthrow  of  the  present  order  of 
things;  secondly,  it  was  future,  but  not  very  far  off;  and 
lastly,  it  was  to  be  national,  though  open  to  the  Gen- 
tiles "*. 

But  did  Christ  really  limit  Himself  to  the  preaching  of 
this  kingdom?  Was  the  dominant  note  of  His  Gospel  the 
eschatological  note?  Did  Christ  announce  a  kingdom  that 
was  to  come  in  the  near  future,  and  that  was  to  be  catastro- 
phic and  national?  Did  He  not  rather  speak  of  a  kingdom 
that  was  to  be  above  all  a  spiritual  kingdom:,  of  a  kingdom 
that  was  present,  by  very  reason  of  the  fact  that  He  himself 
was  in  the  world;  and  a  kingdom  that  was  to  be  simply 
universal? 

Loisy  maintaijis  that  Christ  went  not  beyond  the  escha- 
tological kingdom  expected  by  his  contemporaries,  though 
he  refined  their  idea  of  it  somewhat.  The  Savior's  prea- 
ching, according  to  Loisy,  may  be  summed  up  in  the  one 


1.  For  a  fuller  account  of  Ihedoclrineof  the  kingdom  of  God  among  Christ's 
contemporaries,  see  pp.  65-68  of  this  work. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  271 

text  :  «  Do  penance,  for  the  kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand  »  l. 
In  accordance  with  the  eschatological  view,  conversion  from 
sin  and  expiation  for  sin  are  necessary.  Such  was  the  mes- 
sage of  Jesus;  and  the  Gospel  merely  develops  this  idea -. 
Consequently,  when  Christ  sends  his  Apostles  to  preach, 
all  that  he  tells  them  is  this  :  «  The  kingdom  of  God  is  at 
hand  »  3.  He  assures  his  disciples  that  many  of  them  will 
be  still  alive,  when  the  kingdom  comes4.  And  because  the 
kingdom  is  near,  he  warns  them  to  watch  5,  to  be  ready6, 
and  to  make  good  use  of  the  talents  that  they  have  received. 
When  his  attention  is  called  to  the  fact  thatElias  has  not  yet 
come,  he  answers  that  Elias  came  in  the  person  of  John  the 
Baptist 7. 

If  a  text  seems  to  contradict  his  view,  Loisy  explains  it 
away,  quietly  affirming  that  it  is  part  of  a  «  secondary  stratum 
of  Gospel  tradition  ».  In  this  way  he  explains,  for  example, 
those  passages  in  which  Jesus  affirms  that,  since  the  devils 
are  cast  out,  the  kingdom  of  God  has  come  8. 

Loisy's  views  of  the  eschatological  kingdom  lead  him 
to  restrict  in  a  singular  manner  the  knowledge  of  Christ. 
The  kingdom  was  not  realized,  at  least  under  the  exact  form 
given  in.  the  Savior's  teaching.  Hence,  he  argues,  Christ 
was  ignorant  of  the  future  of  his  own  work,  the  future  of 
the  Christian  religion.  Christ  announced  the  Kingdom ;  lo 
came  the  Church 9. 

Consistently  with  his  view,  Loisy  would  be  compelled 
to  affirm  not  onlv  that  Christ  did  not  know  the  outcome 


1.  M\T.,  iv,  17. 

2.  //Evangile  et  I'Eglise,  p.  71. 

3.  MAT.,  x,  7. 

4   MAT.,  xvi,  28. 

5.  MAT.,  xxiv,  44;  xxv,  1-12. 

6.  MAT.,  XXH,  2-14. 

7.  MAT.,  xvii,  12. 

8.  MAT.,  xvii,  12. 

9.  L' Evangile  et  I'Eglise,  Le  Fils  de  Dieu,  pp.  108-111.  —  Aulour  d'un 
petit  livre,  pp.  138-143. 


272  GOD. 

of  his  own  work,  but  further  that  he  was  mistaken  about  it; 
for,  in  this  case,  it  is  no  longer  question  of  Christ's  silence 
on  a  certain  point,  as  it  is  in  St.  Mark  ?,  but  of  the  positive 
announcement  of  a  fact  which  would  not  have  come  to  pass. 
Here  Christ's  ignorance  and  error  would  consist  in  the  fact 
that  he  believed  and  taught  that  the  kingdom  to  come  was 
to  be  the  eschatological  kingdom  which  had  been  heralded 
before  the  time  of  Christ,  and  not  the  purely  spiritual 
kingdom  that  was  to  consist  in  the  renewal  of  heart. 

Thus,  1hen,  according  to  Loisy,  Christ  mistook  for  the 
some  thing  the  essential  element  of  the  kingdom  and  the 
eschatological  circumstances  under  which  this  kingdom  was 
to  appear.  In  this  error,  he  was  following  the  prophets  and 
the  apocalyptic  authors.  Moreover  this  eschatological  form 
of  kingdom  was  the  only  definite  form  that  his  mind  could 
conceive  of  the  absolute  justice  of  God  towards  the  elect,  and 
towards  the  Son  whom  He  had  sent  and  who  was  to  be  thus 
glorified  by  Him.  That  this  form  of  Jesus  thought  should 
now  appear  to  us  as  merely  symbolical,  and  not  as  really 
descriptive  of  the  actual  kingdom,  as  the  anticipated  history 
foreshadowing  what  was  really  to  happen,  is  something  at 
which  we  should  be  neither  surprised  nor  scandalized  2. 

Criticism  of  Loisy's  Doctrine.  —  According  to  Loisy, 
Christ,  in  confounding  the  essential  element  of  the  Kingdom 
\vith  the  eschatological  form  under  which  it  was  to  appear, 
made  a  gross  mistake,  since  he  taught  that  the  kingdom  that 
was  to  come  was  the  eschatological  kingdom  and  not  that 
wholly  spiritual  kingdom  that  was  to  consist  in  the  renewal 
of  heart.  And  this  error  bearing  on  one  of  the  essential 


1.  MARK,  xm,  32. 

2.  L'Evangile    et    I'Eglise,    jip.   108-111.  —  Loisy's   views  ventilated    in 
L'Ei-angile  et  I'Eglise  and  in  Autour  d'un  petit  livre,  have  been  restated  and 
examined  in  the  light  of  the  texts  involved,   in  his  Evangiles  synoptiques, 
vol.  MI. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  273 

points  of  Christ's  doctrine,  led  into  error  or  strengthened  in 
their  error,  the  Apostles  and  the  first  generation  of  Chris- 
tians. 

Now,  such  an  assertion  is  something  unheard  of  in  Chris- 
tian Tradition.  The  Greek  Fathers,  it  is  true,  asked  whether 
Christ,  in  His  human  knowledge,  which  was  purely  natural, 
was  ignorant  of  certain  things  which  He  afterwards  learned ; 
but  they  never  raised  the  question  as  to  whether  Christ  had 
erred.  In  their  opinion,  error  always  implied  some  imper- 
fection, and  it  was  thought  unworthy  of  the  Word  of  God  to 
assume  a  human  nature  subject  to  such  infirmity. 

This  identification  of  error  with  moral  imperfection,  or 
sin,  is  not  peculiar  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Greek  Fathers;  it 
flows  quite  naturally  from  the  different  ways  of  looking  at 
the  relation  between  intelligence  and  moral  truth.  «  Truth  », 
says  Schleiermacher,  «  is  the  natural  state  of  man;  his  facul- 
ties in  their  normal  condition  ought  to  lead  him  to  it.  Igno- 
rance and  doubt  are  not  error ;  error  enters  only  when  the 
mind  arrives  at  a  false  conclusion.  Error  can  come,  then, 
only  when  the  mind  has  stopped  too  soon  in  its  search  after 
truth;  and  the  mind,  consequently,  must  have  failed  to  love 
truth  as  it  deserves,  or  it  must  have  had  some  hidden  interest 
in  accepting  this  or  that  incomplete  result.  It  is,  therefore, 
quite  impossible  to  distinguish  absolutely  between  error  and 
sin,  at  least  in  the  order  of  truths  which  concern  conscience 
and  the  soul1.  » 

Error  could  not  exist  in  the  human  soul  of  the  Savior. 
To  maintain  that  Christ  made  a  mistake  would  be  to 
deny  His  divinity.  Moreover,  although  Loisy  affirmed  kthat 
Christ  was  «  God  to  fajth2  »,  and  in  another  place  that  «  the 
sentiment  which  Jesus  had  of  his  union  with  God  is  beyond  all 
definition ;  it  is  enough  to  establish  the  fact  that  the  expression 


1.  Cf.  LebenJesu,  p.  118. 

2.  L'Evangile  el  I'tiglise,  le  Fits  de  Dieu,  third  edit.,  p.  111.  —  Autour 
d'un  petit  livre,  p.  155. 

T.  I.  18 


274  GOD. 

that  he  himself  gave  of  it  is,  so  for  as  we  can  grasp  it,  subs- 
tantially equivalent  to  the  Church's  definition  » 1 ,  many  fair 
intellects  believed  from  the  first  that  Loisy  was  bringing  into 
question  the  absolute  divinity  of  Christ.  That  there  may  have 
been  other  reasons  leading  Loisy  to  this  conclusion,  is  quite 
possible.  No  one  will  deny  that  the  view  he  entertained  on 
the  error  of  Christ  in  an  essential  point  of  His  teaching,  was 
in  itself  sufficient  to  lead  him  to  this  sad  conclusion. 

But,  while  the  hypothesis  of  error  in  the  human  intellect 
of  Christ  is  incompatible  with  the  dogma  of  the  hypostatic 
union,  the  same  does  not  hold  with  respect  to  a  certain  igno- 
rance in  Christ's  intellect.  Error  is  a  positive  evil ;  ignorance 
but  an  infirmity.  And  we  are  well  aware  that  Christ  did  not 
shrink  from  taking  upon  Himself  onr  infirmities. 

Yet,  to  admit  that  the  human  intellect  of  Christ  did  not 
know  from  the  beginning,  by  supernatural  light  —  and  by 
supernatural  light  we  mean  the  light  of  glory  which  imparts 
beatific  vision,  and  the  preternatural  lights  which  impart 
infused  knowledge,  —  all  that  it  could  know,  is  to  break  away 
from  all  patristic  and  scholastic  tradition,  and  to  propound  a 
doctrine  which  seems  quite  irreconcilable  with  the  dogma  of 
the  hypostatic  union.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  admit  that 
the  acquired  knowledge  of  the  Savior  wras  constantly  increas- 
ing, and  that  the  Savior,  at  any  period  of  His  life  whatsoever, 
always  knew  what  it  was  proper  for  Him  to  know,  we  find 
that  there  is  nothing  in  this  that  can  shock  the  mind  of  a  well- 
informed  Catholic.  This  view,  in  fact,  is  the  commonly 
accepted  one  in  theology.  «  Can  we  not  suppose  »,  very 
justly  observes  Lepin,  «  that  the  Savior's  supernatural  know- 
ledge, which  had  as  its  object  all  that  can  be  derived  from  the 
divine  light  into  a  created  intellect,  and  which  attained  with 
certainty  to  a  knowledge  of  the  last  day,  as  well  as  of  the 
other  points  with  which  His  mission  was  concerned,  dwelt  in 
some  way  in  a  superior  region  of  His  soul,  whence  it  influenced 

1.  Autour  (Fun  petit  livrc,  pp.  137-138. 


THE  liNCARNATE  WORD.  27", 

partially  and  discreetly  the  knowledge  that  was  to  regulate 

His  practical  conduct  and  guide  His  speech? Can  it  not 

be  admitted  that  Christ  had  an  infused  knowledge,  a 
knowledge  of  the  highest  order,  in  perfect  agreement  with 
His  ordinary  practical  knowledge ;  a  knowledge  excellent,  to 
be  sure,  yet  limited;  incompatible  with  error,  yet  subject  to 
ignorance ;  a  knowledge  subject  to  the  influence  of  His  higher 
light,  in  so  far  as  conformable  to  His  mission ;  and  for  the  rest, 
more  or  less  dependent  upon  His  human  resources?  Such  an 
hypothesis  would  very  well  account  for  the  words  of  Jesus 
regarding  His  ignorance  of  the  last  day ;  it  would  explain  the 
reserve  and  lack  of  precision  that  appear  in  His  eschatological 
discourses;  it  would  account  fully  for  the  testimonies  that 
point  to  an  experimental  and  progressive  knowledge  in 
Christ;  and  finally,  it  would  in  no  way  minimize  that  superior 
knowledge  which  is  required  by  the  hypostatic  union,  and  to 
which  Christ's  whole  history  so  thoroughly  attests1.  » 

Loisy's  conclusions  cannot,  therefore,  be  admitted.  But 
what  are  we  to  think  of  the  difficulties  that  he  has  raised 
apropos  of  Christ's  teaching  on  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

We  grant,  without  the  least  hesitation,  that  the  Savior's 
doctrine  all  points  to  the  proclamation  of  the  Kingdom  of  God; 
and  that  this  is  the  central  idea  in  Christ's  teaching. 

Loisy  holds  that  Christ  limited  himself  to  presenting  a 
more  elevated  view  of  the  eschatological  kingdom  expected 
by  his  contemporaries,  that  is,  a  catastrophic  kingdom,  a 
kingdom  to  come  in  the  near  future,  a  national  kingdom. 

While  some  texts  seem  to  give  authority  to  such  an  inter- 
pretation, a  greater  number  of  others  show,  on  the  contrary, 
that  Jesus  speaks  of  a  kingdom  that  is  to  be  above  all  spiri- 
tual, that  is  present  by  the  very  fact  that  He  Himself  is  per- 
sonally in  the  world,  an  absolutely  universal  kingdom;  in  a 
word,  a  kingdom  altogether  transcending  that  looked  for  by 
the  Jews. 

1.  Cf.  Jtsus  Messic  et  Fits  de  Dieu,  pp.  410-417. 


•276  GOD. 

For  instance,  we  see  that  the  kingdom  is  to  be  set  up 
not  by  the  sudden  destruction  and  transformation  of  the  world, 
but  by  the  renewal  of  hearts1.  If  anyone  would  be  fitly  con- 
verted, he  must  do  penance  for  his  sins2  and  believe  in  him 
that  God  has  sent3.  Then  will  he  belong1  to  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  The  chief  manifestations  of  the  life  of  the  kingdom  are 
mercy,  the  love  of  God,  and  the  love  of  one's  neighbour4. 
Such  a  life  is  a  sure  pledge  of  life  eternal.  All  these  features 
point  to  the  fact  that  the  kingdom  preached  by  Christ  is  wholly 
spiritual.  So,  too,  this  kingdom  is  present  in  the  sense  that 
it  is  established  in  the  soul  insensibly  and  by  degrees  in  pro- 
portion as  the  Gospel  is  received;  it  is  like  the  seed,  which  is 
sowrn  and  then  grows  silently,  sprouting  and  expanding  little 
by  little5.  The  kingdom  is  in  your  midst,  says  Jesus,  and  each 
one  tries  to  enter  therein6.  The  proof  of  this  is  evident  :  the 
coming  of  the  kingdom  is  to  be  contemporaneous  with  the  vic- 
tory over  devils ;  and  since  devils  are  cast  out,  Jesus  argues 
that  the  kingdom  must  have  come7. 

Finally,  Christ  had  no  political  aim ;  above  all  He  had  no 
intention  of  founding  a  sort  of  universal  theocracy,  the 
hegemony  of  which  was  to  be  entrusted  to  the  Jewish  people 
with  the  Messias  at  their  head.  On  the  contrary,  He  preached 
that  the  master  of  the  vineyard  would  exterminate  the  vine- 
dressers and  give  the  vineyard  to  others,  showing  thereby 
that  the  kingdom  of  God  would  be  taken  from  the  Jews  and 
given  to  mankind8.  Because  the  children  of  the  kingdom 
refused  to  come  to  the  feast  prepared  for  them,  the  father  of 
the  family  sent  his  servants  out  into  the  highways  and  the 


1.  MAT.,  xviii,  1-6.  —  MARK,  iv,  12. 

2.  MAT.,  iv,  17.  — MARK,  vi,  12.  —LUKE,  v,  32;  xiu,  3.  5. 

3.  MAT.,  ix,  2,  22;  xv,  28. 

4.  MAX.,  T-VII. 

5.  MAT.,  XIH.  —  MARK,  iv,  14-34. 

6.  LUKE,  xvii,  20-21. 

7.  MAT.,  xn,  28. 

8.  MAT.,  xxi,  43.  —  MARK,  xn,  9.  —  LUKE,  xiv,  16-24. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  277 

byways  to  gather  in  guests1.  «  Many  »,  says  Christ,  «  will 
come  from  the  east  and  the  west,  and  will  take  their  places 
at  the  feast  with  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  in  the  kingdom 
of  heaven,  while  the  children  of  the  kingdom  will  be  thrown 
out  into  exterior  darkness2.  »  The  sermon  on  the  mount  is 
addressed  to  the  whole  world3;  and  our  Lord,  when  about  to 
leave  His  Apostles,  sends  them  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  all 
men4. 

Though  the  kingdom  preached  by  Christ  is  preeminently 
a  spiritual  kingdom,  and  a  kingdom  that  is  present  because 
His  own  person  has  been  given  to  the  world,  and  finally  a 
universal  kingdom,  yet  we  must  admit  that  a  certain  number 
of  texts  will  bear  out  the  assertion  that  Christ  preached  at  the 
same  time  a  kingdom  whose  establishment  was  to  be  marked 
by  frightful  catastrophes,  a  kingdom  which  was  to  come  in 
the  near  future,  and  which  was  to  be  national. 

How  are  we  to  explain  this  dualism  ?  Loisy  meets  the 
difficulty,  as  we  have  seen,  by  saying  that  the  first  portion  of 
this  preaching  formed  no  part  of  the  Savior's  teachings,  but 
represents  the  interpretation  of  the  Apostles.  Others  mostly 
German  deny  more  or  less  radically  the  authenticity  of  the 
second  part. 

According  to  Batiffol,  the  Savior's  teaching  bore  not 
only  upon  the  ruin  of  Jerusalem,  but  also  on  the  end  of  the 
world.  Though  the  evangelists  reproduce  faithfully  the 
words  of  Jesus,  they  allow  to  creep  in  some  of  their  appre- 
hensions regarding  the  end  of  the  world.  This  explains  the 
difficulties  found  in  some  of  the  texts.  Such  influences  it  is 
the  work  of  the  exegete  to  pick  out,  to  restrict,  and  to  cor- 
rect5- 


1.  MAT.,  xxii. —  I.i  KE,  xiv,  16-24. 

2.  MAT.  viii,  11-13.  —  LUKE,  28-30. 

3.  MAT.  v-vii. 

4.  MAT.,  XXVHI,  19-20.  —  MAKK,  xvi,  15. 

5.  P.  BATIFFOL,  L'Enseignement  de  Jesus,  pp.  284-285. —  Bulletin  de  Lil- 
ttralure  ecclesiaslique,  1904,  p.  47. 


278  GOD. 

It  seems  to  us  that  ihe  doctrine  of  the  end  of  the 
world  forms  an  integral  part  of  the  Lords's  teaching. 
There  is  one  place  in  particular  where  editorial  influence 
can  be  detected.  This  is  the  passage  where  it  says  that 
the  disciples  will  still  be  living  when  the  end  comes1,  and 
that  this  generation  will  not  pass  away  until  all  these 
things  be  accomplished2.  This  we  find  stated  otherwise 
in  St.  Luke.  According  to  this  Gospel,  a  long  time  is 
to  elapse  between  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  and  the  end 
of  the  existing  universe,  in  order  that  Christian  principles  may 
gain  authority  in  the  world3.  We  must  not,  however, 
exaggerate  the  extent  of  this  editorial  influence  in  the  Gos- 
pels. It  may  easily  be  that  Jesus  Himself,  though  He  did 
not  group  all  these  events  together,  represented  them  in 
foreshortened  perspective.  He  may  have  been  speaking- 
after  the  manner  of  the  prophets ;  and  the  fact  that  He  re- 
presented these  events  as  almost  on  the  same  plane,  does 
not  necessarily  imply  that  they  were  not  separate  in  His 
mind. 

If,  in  the  course  of  His  earthly  career,  Jesus  was  to 
fulfil  only  a  part  of  His  Messianic  plan  and  leave  the  re- 
mainder for  the  end  of  the  world,  we  can  readily  see  how 
He  might  have  represented  the  Kingdom  of  God  as  at  once 
present  and  future.  This  explains  the  other  aspect  of  His 
apparently  dualistic  teaching. 

We  have  yet  to  examine  another  question  ;  viz. ,  how 
Christ  could  speak  of  a  kingdom  that  was  to  be  universal 
and  yet  national.  Too  much  stress  must  not  be  put  upon 
this  feature  of  the  Gospels;  for,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Gos- 
pels do  not  dwell  much  upon  the  national  character  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  It  is  true  that  Christ  claimed  as  the  special 
end  of  His  mission,  the  restricted  apostolate  of  the  sheep 


1.  MAT.,  xvi,  28. 

2.  MAT.,  xvi,  34. 

3.  LUKE,  xxi,  24. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  279 

that  were  lost  of  the  house  of  Israel1.  But  while  He  said 
that  it  was  proper  that  the  children  of  the  kingdom  should 
take  the  first  seats2  He  showed  by  His  whole  teaching  and 
His  attitude  that,  in  His  mind,  the  restriction  of  salvation  to 
the  Jews  alone,  was  to  be  merely  temporary3.  He  declared 
on  several  occasions  that  the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom  was 
to  be  preached  to  the  whole  world4. 

As  a  result  of  these  considerations,  we  must  conclude 
that  the  starting  point  of  Loisy's  theology  that  our  Lord  was 
content  to  proclaim  in  a  purified  form  the  eschatological 
kingdom  expected  by  His  contemporaries  is  altogether 
WTong.  So,  too,  are  the  conclusions  which  he  deduced 
from  his  false  premises  and  afterwards  tried  to  bolster  up. 

What  the  Church  Condemned.  —  We  have  already  seen 
how  Eulogius  opposed  the  doctrine  of  the  Agnoetae.  The 
acts  of  the  Patriarch  of  Alexandria  were  approved  by 
St.  Gregory  the  Great.  The  Pope  told  Eulogius  that  his 
doctrine  agreed  with  the  teachings  of  St.  Augustine,  and 
that  he  had  forced  the  Agnoeta  Leporius  to  subscribe  to  it. 
From  that  time  on,  it  has  generally  been  admitted  that 
Christ's  human  intellect  knew,  by  supernatural  light,  all 
that  it  was  capable  of  knowing;  though  this  did  not  prevent 
Christ  from  having  acquired,  or  experimental  knowledge, 
susceptible  of  actual  increase,  but  never  defective. 

This  was  the  view  held  by  St.  Thomas  and  his  entire 
school.  Suarez  held  that  the  opposite  doctrine  was  wrong 


1.  MAT.,  x,  6,  xv,  24. 

2.  MARK,  vu,  27. 

3.  Of.  V.  ROSE,  studies  on  Ike  Gospels,  The  Kingdom  of  God,  pp.    123-124  : 
c  Israel  is  the  chosen  field  of  the  Savior  :  it  is   the  first  to  be  called,  it  is 
the  heir  to  which  the  chief  legacy.    But  the  fact  no  leas  remains  that,  from 
the  outset  of  the  Messianic  manifestation,  the  whole   world  comes  into  the 
plant:  of  spiritual  conquest;  and  if  He  kept  Israel  for  Himself,  lie  gave  to  His 
disciples  the  universe  as  the  field  of  their  njmslolalo. 

4.  MAT.,  xxviii,  18-20.—  MARK,  xvl,  15. 


280  GOD. 

and  almost  heretical1.     Petau   also  shared  in   this  vie\v:. 

In  the  decree  Lamentabili,  Pope  Pius  X  condemned  the 
proposition  that  said  that  «  the  natural  sense  of  the  Gospel 
texts  is  irreconcilable  with  the  teachings  of  theology  on  the 
consciousness  and  the  infallible  knowledge  of  Jesus  »  3;  and 
also  the  proposition  that  said  that  «  it  is  evident  to  all  that 
are  not  guided  by  preconceived  views,  either  that  Jesus 
taught  error  about  the  early  advent  of  the  kingdom,  or 
that  the  greater  part  of  the  doctrine  found  in  the  synoptic 
Gospels  is  absolutely  unauthentic4.  These  are  the  wiews 
held  by  Loisy  and  by  Wellhausen. 

Hence,  the  theological  notes  which  Suarez  affixes  to 
the  opinion  of  those  who  hold  that  there  was  incomplete 
knowledge  in  the  Savior's  human  intellect,  seem  to  us  the 
only  words  apt  to  designate  Loisy's  views  :  they  are  errone- 
ous and  very  near  to  heresy ;  and  the  contradictory  doc- 
trine, which  we  maintain,  is  a  doctrine  that  is  certain  and 
almost  defined. 

ARTICLE  III 
Sentiments  in  the  Savior's  Soul. 

The  Psychology  of  Sentiments.  —  The  word  passion, 


1.  De  Inc.,  disp.  xxv,  sect.  1 :  Aliqui  existimant  simpliciter  esse  de  fide 
Sed  non  videtur  quia  Scripturx  teslimonia  non  sunt  adeo  expressa,  quin 
aliis  modis  explicari  possint,  et  nulla  cons  tat  de  hoc  re  definitio  Ecctesix, 
neqve  traditio  est  satis  aperfa...et  idea  alii  solum   dicunt  esse   opinionem 
ita  veram  ut  contrarium  opinari  temerarium  sit...  Existimo  cnim  contra- 
riam  sententiam  eliam  erroneam  et  proximam  hxresi. 

2.  De  Inc.,  1.  XI,  c.  iv,  n.  8-9. 

3.  Prop,   xxx,  DENZ.,  2032  :  Conciliari  nequit  sensus  naturalis  textuum 
evangelicorum,   cum  eo,  quod  nostri  theotogi  docent  de    conscientia   el 
scienlia  infallibili  Jesu  Christi. 

4.  Prop,  xxxin,  DENZ.,  2033  :  Evidens  est  cuique,  qui  prxconceptis  non 
ducitur  opinionibus,  Jesum   out  errorem  de  proximo  messianico  adventu 
fuisse  professum,  aut  major  em  partem  ipsius  doctrinx  in  Evangeliis  synop- 
ticis  contents  authenticitate  carere. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  281 

is  used  in  two  different  senses  :  in  a  broad  sense  it  is  used 
to  designate  any  affective  phenomenon,  be  its  nature  what 
it  may;  it  then  means  sensations,  or  feelings.  This  is  the 
meaning  attached  to  the  word  by  the  Scholastics  and  by  the 
17th  century  writers.  In  a  more  restricted  sense  —  now 
quite  common  in  modern  philosophy  —  it  means  any  affec- 
tive phenomenon  of  greater  intensity,  or  an  affective  phe- 
nomenon that  is  not  only  intense  but  also  inordinate;  that 
is,  a  phenomenon  whose  trend  is  contrary  to  the  moral 
law. 

But,  in  theology,  the  term  passion,  in  a  general  sense, 
means  any  affective  phenomenon,  whether  ordinary  or  more 
intense.  To  express  disorder  in  the  passions,  theologians 
use  the  word  concupiscence.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  we 
used  these  terms  in  discussing  the  questions  of  the  sanctity 
of  Christ,  as  we  do  also  when  speaking  of  original  sin,  and  of 
grace. 

The  two  manifestations  of  passion,  understood  in  the 
latter  sense,  areeither  sensations  or  sentiments.  Sensation  is 
not  a  representative  phenomenon,  but  an  affective  one 
following  upon  a  sensible  representation  or  a  simple  organic 
impression;  as,  for  example,  the  suffering  of  hunger  or  of 
thirst,  or  the  feeling  of  pleasure  that  follows  upon  the  gra- 
tification of  either.  It  is  material  good  that  determines  the 
sensation,  and  this  determination  is  brought  about  either  by 
the  sensible  representation  of  the  material  good  or  by  its 
impression. 

It  is  in  these  two  features  that  sentiment  differs  from  sen- 
sation. What  determines  sentiment  is  good  of  the  spiritual 
order;  as,  for  example,  the  perfection  of  our  neighbor,  the 
setting  up  of  the  kingdom  of  God  in  their  hearts.  This  de- 
termination itself  is  consequent  upon  an  idea,  properly  so 
called;  that  is,  it  flows  from  a  phenomenon  equally  spiri- 
tual. But  so  close  is  the  unity  in  man,  that  sentiment 
nearly  always  has  its  counterpart,  so  to  speak,  in  the  sen- 
sations, just  as  sensation  easily  provokes  sentiment;  and 


28-2  GOD. 

sometimes  the  two  are  so  bound  up  together  that  it  is  quite 
impossible  for  us  to  disengage  them. 

Sentiments  in  the  Savior's  Soul.  —  This  brief  sketch 
will  enable  us  to  consider  the  Savior  under  a  singularly 
interesting  and  instructive  aspect  :  interesting,  because  it 
is  in  this  that  our  Lord  appears  more  clearly  as  man,  like 
ourselves;  instructive,  because  the  sentiments  of  our  Lord 
are  so  elevated  that  their  very  contemplation  must  elicit 
our  admiration  and  our  love  for  Him. 

Now  Jesus  underwent  the  physical  sufferings  of  hunger, 
of  thirst,  and  of  fatigue,  as  other  men  do1.  But,  He  also 
experienced  human  sentiments  like  our  own.  Thus  He  un- 
derwent suffering  in  all  its  forms  :  He  experienced  sadness  so 
extreme  that  He  wept2;  He  experienced  great  joy3,  sympa- 
thy4, anguish5,  indignation6,  horror7  and  agony8.  No  one 
no  matter  how  much  he  may  have  suffered,  can  say  to  Him  : 
«  Lord,  my  sufferings  are  greater  than  Thine9.  » 

Christ,  then,  experienced  human  sentiments  like  our 
own ;  and  from  what  has  been  said,  we  can  see  how  much 


1.  MAT.,  iv,  2.  —  JOHN,  iv,  6-8. 

2.  LURK,  vii,  13 ;  xix,  41.  —  JOHN,  xi,  35. 

3.  LUKE,  x,  38-42 ;  xvm,  15-17.  —  JOHN,  xi,  15. 

4.  MAT.,  ix,  36. 

5.  LUKE,  in,  50.  —  JOHN,  xii,  27. 

6.  LUKE,  xiii,  15.  —  MARK.,  x,  14. 

7.  JOHN,  xi,  33,  38. 

8.  LUKE,  xxii,,  40-44. 

9.  Theologians  have  ever  tried  to  explain  how  the  Savior,  enjoying  the  bea- 
tific vision   as  He  did,  could  undergo  such  sufferings.    The  supreme  happiness 
that  must  have  filled  His  soul,   hypostatically  united  to  the  divinity,  did  not 
prevent  the  bitter  sadness  in  the    Garden  of  Olives,  nor   the  anguish  on  the 
cross.    The  glory,  which,  by    virtue  of  this  hypostatic  union,  must  have  full 
possession  of  His  sacred  body,  had  its  effects  suspended,  as  it  were,  in  the  obla- 
tion which  the  victim  made  of  Himself  from  the  moment  of  His  entry  into  the 
world,  until  His  iast  moment  on  Calvary.    His  glory    broke  through  but   for 
an    instant,  in    His  glorious  transfiguration.    The  enjoyment  of  the    beatific 
vision  was  limited  to  the  superior  part  of  Christ's  humanity ;  and  only  on  the 
day  of  His  resurrection  did  He  enter  completely  into  this  glory. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  283 

delicacy  and  elevation  there  must  have  been  in  His  soul. 
There  were  in  the  Savior's  soul,  just  as  in  the  souls  of  men, 
passions,  but  passions  freed  from  all  concupiscence.  His 
passions  were  perfectly  ordered  as  to  their  object,  that  is, 
the  good  towards  which  they  tended  and  inclined  the 
Savior's  will;  and  in  their  source,  too,  since  they  were  in  no 
way  the  manifestation  of  a  corrupted  nature,  and,  finally, 
in  their  effects,  since  they  did  not  disturb  His  will  or  the 
perfect  calm  of  His  intellect.  The  passions  in  Christ  were, 
then,  motions  towards  good,  subject  to  His  reason  and  His 
will,  and  causing-  none  of  those  disturbances  so  closely 
allied  to  sin.  We  must  not  think,  however,  that  Christ's 
passions  had  lost  all  spontaneity.  This  would  be  to  deprive 
His  human  nature  of  all  its  charm,  and  to  take  away  from 
it  one  of  the  most  beautiful  features  of  our  humanity1. 


1.  There  are,  then,  two  natures  in  Christ,  the  divine  nature  and  the  human 
nature;  but  there  is  only  one  person,  the  person  of  the  Word. 

Now,  it  may  happen  that  the  nouns  or  adjectives  belonging  strictly  to  one  ot 
these  two  natures  idiomata,  are  applied  to  the  other,  and  vice  versa.  In 
this  case,  there  is  a  kind  of  interchange  of  nouns  and  adjectives  belonging  pro- 
perly to  either,  a  communicalio  idiomalum.  It  may  be  that  this  communi- 
cation is  not  always  in  strict  conformity  with  the  truth.  Thus,  it  would  be 
false  to  say  that  Christ's  divinity  is  mortal,  or  that  His  humanity  is  divine. 

It  is  quite  important,  then,  to  determine  the  rules  to  be  followed,  so  as  to 
avoid  going  counter  to  the  truth  in  predicating  of  one  of  the  natures  the  terms 
that  belong  properly  to  the  other.  In  dialectics,  that  of  which  a  thing  is  pre- 
dicated is  called  the  subject,  or  matter;  that  which  is  affirmed  or  denied  of  the 
subject  is  called  the  predicate  or  form.  The  nominative  is  called  the  direct 
case;  the  other  cases  are  called  indirect,  or  oblique  cases. 

A  concrete  noun  is  one  that  contains  at  once  the  subject  and  the  form.  11 
connotes  the  subject  in  the  direct  ease,  and  the  attribute  in  the  oblique  case. 
Take,  for  example,  the  concrete  noun  philosophus.  This  noun  is  equivalent 
to  the  expression  subjectum  habens  philosophiam  ;  in  English,  a  man  of  know- 
ledge. 

An  abstract  noun  designates  only  the  form,  but  this  in  the  direct  case. 
An  adjective  designates  only  the  form,  but  this  in  the  indirect  case. 

From  these  principles  we  lay  down  (he  rules  that  govern  the  interchange 
of  predicates. 

Rule  I  :  Communicatio  idiomalum  semper  licita  ett  in  concretis.  Con- 
crete nouns  designating  one  nature  can  have  as  predicates  nouns  or  adjectives 


284  GOD. 

connoting  the  other  nature.  Thus,  we  may  say  :  Verbum  esl  homo  —  a  sim- 
ple attributive  construction.  We  may  also  say  :  Verbum  est  unus  ex  homini- 
bus,  that  is,  one  of  the  individual  belonging  to  the  human  race  —  a  case  of 
attribution  by  specification.  It  is  correct  to  say  :  Verbum  Incarnatum  est 
hie  homo  —  an  attribution  by  identification,  for  the  attribute  merely  repro- 
duces the  subject. 

Rule  II  :  Communicatio  idiomatum  generaliter  prohibetur  in  abstractis. 
Abstract  nouns  that  belong  properly  to  one  of  the  two  natures,  cannot,  as  a 
rule,  be  predicated  of  nouns,  either  abstract  or  concrete,  connoting  the  other 
nature.  Thus,  we  should  not  say:  Humanitas  est  divinitas,  or  Divinitas  est 
homo. 

We  say  in  general,  because  in  God  the  hypostasis  and  the  substance  are 
identical,  and  it  may  be  that  the  word  divinitas  is  used  only  apparently  in  the 
abstract,  and  that  it  stands  in  reality  for  the  Word.  If  such  were  the  case,  it 
might,  for  instance,  be  said  :  Divinitas  passa  est.. 

Rule  III  :  Adjectiva  non  sumentur,  nisi  ex  contextu  servetur  unio  hypo- 
statica.  Since  there  are  adjectives  that  belong  to  either  nature,  we  must  lake 
care  to  see  in  which  sense  they  are  used.  If  they  imply  that  the  human  nature 
is  united  to  the  Word  only  accidently,  we  must  discard  them.  It  would  be 
wrong  to  say,  for  instance  :  Christus  est  deificatus,  sen  est  habens  aliquid 
deitatis;  but  it  is  correct  to  say  :  Christus  est  divinus. 


CHAPTER  III 

CAUSES   OF  THE  INCARNATION 

General  Idea.  -  -  The  dogma  of  the  Incarnation  affirms 
the  union  of  the  finite  with  the  infinite  in  the  person  of  the 
Word .  Though  such  a  mystery  is  more  than  we  can  fathom, 
human  reason  still  has  a  right  to  inquire  into  its  causes, 
with  the  conviction  that,  impenetrable  as  the  mystery  in 
itself  may  be,  a  study  of  it  must  throw  some  light  on  the 
question. 

Hence,  we  shall  consider  the  three  causes  of  the  In- 
carnation :  the  final  cause,  the  meritorious  cause,  and  the 
efficient  cause. 

The  Final  Cause  of  the  Incarnation.  —  Without  a  doubt 
the  decree  of  the  Incarnation  was  prompted  by  a  number 
of  ends,  such  as  the  glory  of  God  through  the  glorification 
of  the  Word,  the  Redemption  of  the  human  race  from  the 
bondage  of  sin,  and  the  instruction  and  edification  of  men. 

But  of  all  these  causes,  was  not  the  Redemption  the 
principal  end,  the  determining  motive?  If  man  had  not 
sinned,  would  the  Redemption  have  taken  place  at  all? 

All  admit  as  a  datum  of  faith  that  the  Incarnation, 
with  all  its  attendant  humiliating  circumstances  of  suffering 
and  death,  was  decreed  by  the  Almighty  with  a  view  to 
the  Redemption  of  the  human  race  from  the  slavery  of  sin. 
Such  is  the  doctrine  of  all  the  councils  of  the  fourth  and 
the  fifth  centuries;  and  their  formulas  on  this  point  have 


286  GOD. 

always  been  the  same  :  Qui  propter  nos  homines  et  proptcr 
nostram  salutem  incarnatus  est.  It  is  admitted  on  all  sides 
that,  had  there  been  no  sin,  the  Word  would  not  have 
become  Incarnate  in  a  body  passible  and  mortal.  It  is  even 
granted  that,  had  there  been  no  fall,  the  Incarnation  would 
have  been  possible,  and  even  quite  becoming. 

But,  as  to  the  question  now  before  us,  some  say  that 
God  decreed  the  Incarnation  of  the  Word  independently  of  the 
fact  that  he  foresaw  that  man  was  to  fall;  that  the  Word 
would  have  been  made  flesh,  even  though  man  had  not  sin- 
ned. They  hold  that  the  fact  that  the  Incarnation  took 
place  in  a  flesh  that  was  passible  and  mortal,  is  due  to  God's 
prevision  of  the  fall  of  man.  Such  was  the  opinion  of  Sco- 
tus1,  of  Suarez2,  and  of  St.  Francis  of  Sales3. 

The  others  maintain  that  God  decreed  the  Incarnation 
only  because  of  His  prevision  of  the  sin  of  man,  and  that 
had  man  not  sinned,  the  Word  would  not  have  become  In- 
carnate. This  was  the  opinion  of  St.  Thomas4,  of  St.  Bo- 
naventure5,  of  Vasquez6,  of  Cardinal  de  Lugo7,  of  Petau8, 
and  of  Hiirter9,  and  Pesch10. 

According  to  the  Scotistic  opinion,  the  first  plan  of  the 
creation,  or  the  first  intention  of  God,  would  have  been  as 
follows  :  The  first  object  of  the  decree  was  the  glorification 
of  the  Word,  which  consists  in  the  union  of  the  Word  to  a 
human  nature,  perfect  in  its  order  and  perfect  in  the  order 
of  supernatural  goods.  God  then  created  angels  and  men, 


t.  InIII'm,  dist.  VII,  q.  m. 

2.  De  Inc.,  disp.,  V,  sect.  2,  n.  13;  sect.  4,  n.  17;  sect.  5,  n.  8. 

3.  Treatise  on  the  love  God,  1.  II,  ch.  iv. 

4.  Sum.  tkeol.,  IIP,  q.  i,  a.  3. 

5.  In  HI  Sent:,  dist.  I,  q.  n,  a.  2. 

6.  In  HI*m,  disp.  I,  c.  i. 

7.  De  Inc.,  disp.  vii,  sect.  1,  n.  2. 

8.  De  Inc.,  1,  II,  c.  XVH,  n.  7. 

9.  Theol.  dogm.,  vol.  II,  n.  458. 

10.  Tract,  dogm.,  De  Verbo  incarnate,  p.  194. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  287 

to  serve  as  a  sort  of  court  to  the  Incarnate  Word.  In  order 
that  they  might  be  worthy  of  attending  the  Incarnate  Word, 
these  beings  were  to  be  perfect,  each  in  his  own  order, 
and  perfect  in  the  order  of  supernatural  goods.  These  gifts 
both  natural  and  supernatural,  were  to  be  given  these  crea- 
tures solely  in  view  of  the  Incarnate  Word.  And  lastly, 
always  with  the  same  aim  in  view,  God  would  decree  ihe 
creation  of  the  most  perfect  world  possible. 

Had  the  first  plan  been  realized,  God  would,  according 
to  the  order  of  execution,  which  is  the  reverse  of  the  order 
of  intention,  have  first  created  a  most  perfect  world,  and 
then  men  and  angels,  both  perfect  in  the  gifts  of  nature 
and  of  grace.  Midway  in  the  course  of  time,  the  Word 
would  have  appeared  in  a  glorified  human  nature. 

It  was  possible,  however,  to  thwart  the  divine  plan. 
According  to  God's  will,  men  and  angels  were  to  be  free 
creatures  who,  by  the  proper  use  of  their  wills,  might  per- 
mit the  primitive  plan  to  be  carried  out ;  and,  by  the  mis- 
use of  this  same  free  will,  might  cause  the  Almighty  to 
modify  His  first  designs,  though  they  could  not  nullify  them 
altogether. 

Now,  God  foresaw  from  all  eternity  the  fall  of  men  and 
angels;  and  just  as  He  conceived  from  all  eternity  the  plan 
to  be  carried  out  if  angels  and  men  did  not  fall,  so,  too,  from 
all  eternity  He  conceived  the  modified  plan  that  was  actually 
to  be  carried  out,  since  men  and  angels  were  to  fall.  Both 
the  primitive  and  the  modified  plans,  since  they  were  con- 
ceived from  all  eternity,  bear  to  each  other  but  a  logical 
relation  of  anteriority  and  posteriority. 

According  to  this  second  plan,  then,  the  divine  Word, 
before  entering  into  glory,  was  to  renounce  freely  this  glory, 
and  to  pass  through  a  period  of  humiliation  and  suffering, 
even  to  the  death  of  the  cross.  In  this  way  was  He  to 
expiate  the  sins  of  men,  though  not  of  angels.  After  the 
accomplishment  of  this  task,  He  was  to  be  glorified.  For 
his  sin,  man  was  to  be  condemned  to  misery  in  body  and 


288  GOD. 

soul;  he  was  to  regain  only  gradually  the  glory  that  God 
had  destined  to  be  his,  and  this  by  struggling  painfully 
against  the  difficulties  besetting  him  on  all  sides,  and  by 
uniting  himself  by  love  to  the  risen  Christ.  The  world,  also, 
was  to  be  modified  after  the  fall ;  instead  of  being  an  object 
of  enjoyment  for  man,  it  was  to  be  an  object  of  pain  and  of 
physical  suffering.  The  order  of  execution  in  either  case  is 
just  the  reverse  of  the  order  of  intention;  and  either  may 
be  found  by  the  simple  inversion  of  the  other. 

This  synthesis  lacks  neither  beauty  nor  grandeur;  nor 
are  the  arguments  offered  in  its  support  without  strength. 
The  Incarnation  is  God's  supreme  work;  it  manifests,  more 
than  all  His  other  works,  His  love,  His  wisdom,  His  power, 
and  His  holiness.  To  say  that  such  a  work  was  designed 
primarily  with  a  view  to  the  sin  of  man,  and  with  a  purely 
utilitarian  object  — hat  of  supplying  the  great  means  of  re- 
paration, —  seems  but  little  in  accord  with  our  idea  of 
the  nature  of  God.  Furthermore,  as  says  the  council  of  Trent, 
the  end  of  our  justification  is  the  glory  of  the  Incarnate 
Word,  and,  hence,  the  glory  of  God1.  The  glory  of  the 
Incarnate  Word  would  be  secured  through  the  Redemption, 
but  let  us  remember  that  God  must  have  willed  the  end  — 
that  is,  the  glory  of  his  Word  —  before  the  means  —  that 
is,  the  Redemption. 

The  Scotistic  opinion  is  no  doubt  well-founded.  The 
only  exception  that  we  take  to  it,  on  rational  grounds,  is 
that  it  implies  in  God  several  successive  decrees.  To  this 
objection,  the  Scotists  answer  that  God  saw  and  decreed  all 
things  at  the  same  time,  and  that  the  sequence  in  previsions 
and  decrees  exists  only  in  our  own  minds,  when  we  try  to 
picture  to  ourselves  the  designs  of  the  Almighty. 

The  Scotistic  opinion  is  considered  as  probable.  Even 
St.  Thomas  concedes  that  it  may  be  said  with  probability  that 


1.  Sess.  VI,  c.  vii ;  DENZ.,  799  •  Justificationis  causx  sunt  finalis  quidem 
gloria  Dei  et  Christi. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  289 

the  Incarnation  would  have  taken  place,  even  had  there  been 
no  fall*. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  the  contrary  opinion,  known  as  the 
Thomistic,  is  usually  held  as  the  more  probable .  The  reason 
for  this,  says  St.  Bonaventure,  is  that  while  less  well-founded 
than  the  other  on  a  priori  grounds,  it  is  more  in  confor- 
mity with  the  authority  of  the  Sacred  Books2. 

In  truth,  it  is  evident,  as  we  shall  soon  see,  that  through- 
out the  Gospel,  Jesus  always  says  that  He  was  sent  for  the 
salvation  of  men.  It  is  evident  that  He  foresaw  and  accepted 
His  death  as  the  chief  part  of  His  Messianic  mission. 

The  Scotists  have  tried  to  weaken  this  argument  by 
saying  that  the  Gospel  treats  of  the  Incarnation  only  in  its 
humiliating  aspect,  and  not  as  it  would  have  been  if  man 
had  not  committed  sin.  To  anyone  familiar  with  the  doc- 
trine of  the  New  Testament,  this  answer  must  indeed  appear 
somewhat  subtle. 

Furthermore,  when  it  is  question  of  explaining  the 
designs  of  the  Almighty,  the  simplest  views  are  usually  the 
soundest.  On  this  score  the  Thomistic  view  must  certainly 
find  preference.  A  few  deft  strokes  will  suffice  to  sketch 
the  Creator's  design  of  the  world.  God  decrees  that  angels 
and  men  shall  be  created,  and  that,  at  the  same  time,  they 
shall  be  raised  by  His  grace  to  a  supernatural  order.  Man  is 
to  be  free  :  he  can  sin,  or  he  need  not.  If  he  chooses  to  sin, 
he  will  lose  grace  and  all  his  descendants  will  come  into  the 
world  without  grace.  The  second  alternative  was  the  one 


1.  In  III  Sent.,  dist.  I,  q.  i,  a.  3,  sol. 

2.  In  III  Sent.,  dist.  I,  q.  n,  a.  2  :  Quis  horum  modorum  dicendi verier 
sit,  novit  ille,  qui  pro  nobis  incarnari  dignatus  est.  Quis  etiam  horum  alteri 
prxponendux  sil,  difficile  est  videre,  pro  eo  quod  uterque  modus  catholicux 
est  ct  a  viris  calholicis  sustinetar.    Ulerque  etiam  modus  excitat  animam 
ad  devotionem  xecundum  diversas  consideraliones.     Videtur  autem  primus 
modus  (postea  scolistarum)  magi*  consonare  judicio  rationis  ;  secunda  (amen 
(postea  thomistarum)  plus  conttat  pietdti  ftdei,  quia  auctoribus  Sanctorum 
et  Sacrae  Xcripturae  magis  concordat. 

T.  i.  19 


290  GOD. 

that  was  to  be  realized.  Then  God,  in  order  to  redeem  man 
from  the  bondage  of  sin,  decreed  the  Redemption  of  the 
world  through  the  Incarnation  of  the  Word  in  a  flesh  passible 
and  mortal. 

The  Necessity  of  the  Incarnation.  — Wether  the  principal 
motive  of  the  Incarnation  is  the  glorification  of  Christ  and  of 
God,  or  the  Redemption  of  the  world,  we  ask  ourselves  in 
what  measure  this  motive  determines  or  necessitates  the  fact 
of  the  Incarnation. 

St.  Anselm,  in  his  Cur  Deus  homo,  undertakes  to  prove 
from  reason,  apart  from  the  Gospel  and  Tradition,  that, 
given  the  fall  of  man,  the  Incarnation  was  necessary.  The 
following  is  a  brief  of  his  arguments.  From  the  moment 
that  God  decreed  that  man  should  be  created,  since  He  foresaw 
the  fall,  He  must  at  the  same  time  have  decreed  the  restoration 
of  this  fallen  humanity.  This  would  be  in  accord  with  the 
absolute  order.  Restoration  was  possible  only  by  a  satisfac- 
tion equal  to  the  offense;  that  is,  by  a  satisfaction  of  infinite 
value.  But  such  a  satisfaction  is  clearly  beyond  the  reach  of 
man.  Hence,  to  offer  to  God  the  homage  which  His  justice 
demands,  the  Word  of  God  must  become  Incarnate1. 

If  the  first  part  of  the  argument  be  admitted,  the  con- 
clusion necessarily  follows.  But  to  maintain  that  God,  since 
He  foresaw  the  fall,  could  not  create  man  without  at  the  same 
time  decreeing  his  restoration  by  offering  a  satisfaction  equal 
to  the  offense,  is  to  bind  God  by  a  necessity  that  is  altogether 
irreconcilable  with  His  liberty.  Furthermore,  we  thereby 
make  the  Incarnation  itself  dependent  upon  this  necessity, 
whereas  Holy  Writ  represents  the  work  of  the  Incarnation  as 
above  all  a  manifestation  of  God's  love  and  of  His  mercy 
upon  sinful  man.  It  must  be  confessed  that  there  is  no  limit 
to  the  straying  of  human  reason  when  it  undertakes  to  explain, 


i.  Cf.  1. 1,  c.  11,  is,  20,  21 ;  p.  i.,  CLVIII. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  291 

unassisted,  the  mysteries  of  God.  St.  Anselm's  view  on  the 
question  is  quite  generally  rejected1. 

Some  philosophers,  adopting  even  more  extreme  views 
than  that  of  St.  Anselm,  have  gone  so  far  as  to  say  that,  by 
the  very  hypothesis  of  the  Creation,  the  Incarnation  was 
necessary  on  God's  part.  If  Gof,  says  Malebranche,  deigns  to 
create  a  world,  he  must  make  it  a  world  that  will  be  to  His 
glory.  Now,  to  attain  this  end,  the  world  must  in  some  way 
show  the  eminent  perfections  of  its  maker;  for  a  work  does 
honor  to  its  maker  by  revealing  some  of  the  excellences  in 
which  its  author  glories.  Only  by  God's  finding  some  way 
to  render  His  work  divine,  could  it  attain  to  this  dignity ;  and 
there  could  be  no  other  way  to  accomplish  this  but  by  union 
with  a  divine  person2. 

Against  these  authors  we  maintain  that  the  Incarnation 
was  necessary  to  God  neither  as  the  consequence  of  His  pre- 
vision of  the  fall  nor  as  its  antecedent.  God  is  free  in  His 
external  operations,  and  He  is  in  no  way  held  to  seek  in  them 
the  greatest  perfection. 

Even  after  the  fall,  God  might  have  decreed  not  to  redeem 
man,  and  consequently  to  deprive  him  forever  of  eternal  life. 
If  instead  of  doing  this,  He  decreed  the  Redemption  of  man 
by  the  Incarnation  of  His  divine  Son,  it  is  due  simply  to  His 
goodness3. 

Likewise,  God  could  have  raised  man  again  to  the 
supernatural  order  without  exacting  any  satisfaction  at  all, 
or  only  an  imperfect  satisfaction.  He  might,  for  example, 
have  brought  men  to  contrition  for  their  sins,  by  His  grace; 
or  He  might  have  entrusted  the  work  of  humanity's  expiation 
to  a  just  man,  raised  to  an  extraordinary  degree  of  sanctity'1. 


1.  We  shall  take  up  this  question  more  at  length  in  our  third  part,  p.  330-333. 

2.  Cf.  Neuvitme  Entretien  sur  la  Mtlaphysique. 

3.  TIIOM.  AQ.  In  11  f  Sent.,  (list.   \\,  q.  i,  a.  1,  sol.  i  and  n.  —  SUAREZ,  De 
Inc.,  (lisp.  IV,  sect.  1,  n.  1. 

4.  TIIOM.  AQ.,  Sum.  theol,  III",  q.  xtvi,  a.  2,  3"™.  —  SOABBZ,  De  7nc.,disp. 
IV,  sect.  2,  n.  3. 


292  GOD. 

However,  in  the  hypothesis  that  God  would  require 
adequate  satisfaction,  —  and  this  has  been  the  case  —  the 
Incarnation  became  necessary;  for  it  is  true  that  the  gravity 
of  the  offense  depends  upon  the  dignity  of  the  person  offended, 
and  man's  sin  offers  God  an  insult  as  it  were  infinite.  Now, 
such  an  injury,  only  the  homage  of  the  Incarnate  Word 
could  repair1. 

The  Fitness  of  the  Incarnation.  —  Though  the  Incarnation 
was  not  antecedently  necessary,  or  became  necessary  only 
on  the  condition  that  God  would  require  adequate  satisfaction, 
yet  it  was  most  fitting  that  it  should  take  place,  no  matter 
in  what  light  we  view  it. 

God  is  holiness  itself;  nothing  is  more  opposed  to  Him 
than  sin,  for  sin  is  the  denial  of  God.  In  order,  therefore,  to 
show  man  the  enormity  of  sinful  disorder,  though  might 
have  granted  His  pardon  without  any  exaction  whatsoever, 
or  might  have  accepted  only  partial  satisfaction,  God  imposed 
an  adequate  satisfaction  that  could  be  rendered  only  by  the 
bloody  death  of  the  Incarnate  Word. 

In  this  way,  He  proves  to  us  His  infinite  love.  On  the 
whole,  had  God  pardoned  us  without  any  satisfaction  at  all, 
or  with  only  partial  satisfaction,  He  would  thereby  have 
taught  us  less  effectively  His  detestation  of  sin ;  He  would  have 
shown  less  love  for  us,  since  to  love  is  to  give  one's  self.  But 
in  the  Incarnation,  God  went  to  the  extreme  in  giving 
Himself,  for  here  He  united  Himself  hypostatically  to  our 
humanity  in  order  to  dwell  amongst  us  and  to  suffer  and  die 
for  us. 

Again  the  Incarnation  manifests  in  the  highest  degree  the 
wisdom  and  the  power  of  God.  In  His  mercy,  God  would  save 
sinful  man;  in  His  holiness,  He  would  procure  salvation  b^r 
way  of  strict  justice,  that  is,  by  exacting  a  work  which  could 


1.  THOU.  AQ.,  Sum.  theol.,  IIP  q.  I,  a,  2,  ad2um.  —  SUAREZ,  De  Inc.,  disp. 
IV,  sect.  2,  n.  5.  —  DE  LUGO,  De  Inc.,  disp.  V. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  293 

repair  in  a  worthy  manner  the  injury  done.  It  remained 
for  His  wisdom  to  find  a  means  of  reconciliation.  The  Word 
of  God  would  become  Incarnate  in  an  humble  body  and 
would  offer  the  great  sacrifice  of  expiation.  Here  the  divine 
power  intervened  and  completed  this  great  work  by  uniting- 
in  one  and  the  same  person  the  infinite  nature  of  God  and 
the  finite  nature  of  man. 

The  Incarnation,  altogether  worthy  of  God  as  it  is,  wanted 
nothing  to  make  it  most  fit  for  man  also.  By  it  God  conferred 
upon  man  the  inestimable  dignity  of  the  closest  union  with 
the  divinity,  and  at  the  same  time  gave  man  the  most  sublime 
lessons  on  the  horror  with  which  sin  should  inspire  him,  and 
the  respect  that  man  owes  his  own  nature,  which  was  judged 
fit  to  be  united  to  the  Word  of  God. 

It  was  quite  fitting,  also,  that  the  Son  rather  than  any 
other  person  should  become  Incarnate.  In  this  way  the 
same  person  was  at  once  the  Son  of  God  and  the  Son  of  man ; 
the  world  was  restored  by  the  Word  of  God,  by  whom  it  was 
first  called  out  of  nothing;  for  it  is  according  to  the  image  of 
this  Word  that  the  world  was  made1. 

The  Meritorious  Cause  of  the  Incarnation.  —  Did  man 
by  his  actions  deserve  to  have  the  Word  become  Incarnate  for 
him? 

Before  attempting  to  answer  this  question,  we  must  make 
clear  our  idea  of  merit.  Merit,  as  explained  at  length  in 
the  tract  on  Grace,  is  the  claim  that  a  good  work  has  upon 
reward.  There  are  two  kinds  of  merit  :  the  first  is  that 
which  a  work  has  in  strict  right,  because  the  work  itself 
possesses  some  intrinsic  value  and  because  there  is  a  contract 


1.  Cf.  BOSSUET,  Sermon  pour  le  Vendredi  saint.  —  .BOORDALOUE,  Premier 
sermon  sur  la  passion  de  J.-C.  —  LACOHDURE,  72"  conf.,  I)e  la  sanction  du 
gouvernementdivin;  —  73*  conf.,  De  I'incorporation  du  Fils  de  Dieu  a  I'hu- 
manite,  et  de  t'homme  au  Fils  de  Dieu.  —  MOVSAHUK,  Le  Vainqueur  de  la  mort. 
Relraite  pascale,  1888. 


294  GOD. 

between  the  one  doing  the  work  and  him  for  whom  it  is 
done.  This  is  called  merit  de  condigno.  The  other  is  that 
which  the  work  has  merely  by  reason  of  fitness.  In  the 
second  case,  the  work  possesses  a  certain  intrinsic  value,  but 
it  is  rewarded  chiefly  because  it  is  done  for  a  master,  bountiful 
as  well  as  powerful  and  merciful,  who  is  pleased  to  shower 
his  gifts  upon  others.  This  is  called  merit  de  congruo. 

Now,  clearly  Christ  in  no  way  merited  the  Incarnation, 
since  this  great  mystery  was  accomplished  from  the  very 
moment  of  the  Savior's  conception. 

On  the  authority  of  the  history  of  the  people  of  Israel,  it 
is  taught  that  the  Patriarchs  of  the  Old  Testament  merited  by 
their  good  works,  but  only  de  congruo,  certain  circumstances 
of  the  Incarnation,  such  as  the  assumption  of  human  nature 
from  the  stock  of  Israel. 

The  question  is  also  asked  whether  the  Blessed  Virgin 
merited  to  become  the  mother  of  the  only  Son  of  God,  accord- 
ing to  the  flesh.  The  answer  usually  given  is  that  she 
did  merit  this  great  privilege,  but  merely  out  of  fitness.  St. 
Thomas  takes  this  congruous  merit  in  its  usual  sense  when 
he  says  that  Mary,  by  her  correspondence  to  the  grace  and 
the  revelations  given  her,  merited  to  become  the  Mother  of 
God.  Cardinal  de  Lugo  has  a  long  discussion  on  this  point. 
The  conclusion  he  comes  to  is  that  the  Blessed  Virgin  merited 
this  glorious  privilege  only  by  way  of  congruity  very  broadly 
understood2.  She  merited  to  become  the  Mother  of  God  in 
this  sense,  that  she  was  found  worthy  to  become  the  Mother 
according  to  the  flesh  of  the  Word  of  God.  In  liturgical 
language,  where  much  use  is  made  of  this  consideration,  — 
as,  for  example,  in  the  Regina  Caeli,  where  it  is  said  :  Quia 

quern  meruisti  portare ,  —  the  word  mereri  is  synonymous 

with  dignari. 


1.  Sum.  theol.,  IIIa  q.  II,  a.  11,  ad  3um. 
S.  DE  Luco,  Delnc.,  disp.  V,  VI,  VII. 


THE  INCARNATE  WORD.  295 

Efficient  Cause  of  the  Incarnation.  -  -  The  Incarnation 
may  mean  either  the  action  by  which  the  Word  of  God  was 
united  to  humanity  —  which  might  be  translated  into  Latin 
by  the  word  unicio;  or  it  may  mean  the  permanent  union  of 
the  Word  of  God  with  humanity  —  in  Latin  unio. 

The  permanent  union  of  the  Word  of  God  to  humanity 
belongs  properly  to  the  Word  of  God,  because,  strictly 
speaking,  it  is  the  Word  of  God  that  became  flesh.  But  the 
action  by  which  this  union  was  effected  is  something  exterior 
to  the  divine  life;  it  is  what  is  called  operatic  ad  extra.  All 
such  operations  belong  to  the  three  Persons  in  common. 
Hence,  this  union,  in  the  active  sense  of  unicio,  was  effected 
by  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost.  To  illustrate 
this  doctrine,  we  may  consider  a  person  who,  wilh  the  aid  of 
two  other  persons,  puts  on  a  garment.  Only  one  person  is 
clothed,  but  three  persons  cooperate  in  clothing  that  one. 

If,  however,  we  accept  the  Trinitarian  theology  of  the 
Greek  Fathers,  according  to  whom  the  Holy  Ghost  is  the  term 
of  the  divine  life,  it  will  be  said  that  the  Incarnation,  taken  in 
the  sense  of  unicio,  must  be  attributed  rather  to  the  third 
Person  of  the  Trinity.  This  view,  too,  the  Gospel  narrative 
of  the  Infancy  would  seem  to  bear  out. 


PART  THE  THIRD 

CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER 


«  I  believe  in  only  one  Lord,  Jesus  Christ,  the  only  Son 
of  God,  who  for  us  men  and  for  our  salvation  came  down 
from  heaven,  and  having  taken  flesh  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  by 
the  operation  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  was  made  man ,  who  for  us 

was  crucified  and  suffered  under  Pontius  Pilate »     So 

reads  the  creed  that  defines  and  exposes  the  dogma  of  the 
Redemption1. 

God  might  have  pardoned  us  without  exacting  anything  of 
us,  but  He  did  not  choose  to  do  so.  He  willed  rather  to 
accomplish  this  by  Redemption,  a  Redemption  that  would 
give  perfect  satisfaction.  In  order  to  carry  out  this  great 
plan,  the  Word  of  God,  God  of  God,  Light  of  Light,  true  God 
of  true  God,  born  of  the  Father  before  all  ages,  of  the  same 
nature  as  the  Father,  was  made  Incarnate  in  a  flesh  subject 
to  suffering,  to  poverty,  and  to  death. 

The  Incarnation  of  the  Word  in  an  humble  flesh,  is  the 
first  mysterious  aspect  of  the  dogma  of  the  Redemption.  To 
our  limited  intellect,  it  would  seem  that,  if  the  Word  became 
flesh,  it  must  unite  itself  to  a  flesh  not  only  free  from  sin,  but 
even  from  all  the  consequences  of  sin.  How  could  the 
eternal  Word  of  the  Father,  infinitely  holy,  become  the  res- 
ponsible subject  of  a  humanity  in  which  resided,  in  the 

1.  DENZ.,  8C. 


298  GOD. 

high  est  degree,  some  of  the  consequences  of  the  sin  of  the 
first  man!  And  yet,  God  so  willed  it,  that  Adam's  sinful 
humanity  might  in  Christ  become  an  atoning  humanity. 

So,  the  Incarnation  took  place  in  lowly  flesh;  the  work 
of  expiation  was  begun.  This  alone  might  have  sufficed; 
for,  to  accomplish  an  adequate  redemption,  it  would  have 
been  enough  for  this  poor  humanity,  to  which  the  Word  was 
now  united,  to  send  up  one  plaintive  wail  asking  forgiveness 
of  God  the  Father.  Yet,  according  to  the  divine  plan,  the 
work  was  just  beginning.  «  Holocausts  for  sin  did  not  please 
thee.  Then  said  I  :  Behold  I  come  to  do  thy  will,  0  God l.  » 

Now  become  the  victim  for  the  sins  of  the  human  race, 
Jesus  will  spend  His  whole  life  in  complete  and  perpetual 
sacrifice.  Scarcely  is  He  born  when,  despite  the  poverty  by 
which  He  willed  to  be  surrounded,  He  is  persecuted. 

After  a  period  of  silence  and  obscurity,  the  time  comes 
for  Him  to  proclaim  to  man  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  has 
come,  that  all  men  must  do  penance  and  believe  in  Him,  if 
they  would  share  in  the  kingdom.  In  accomplishing  this 
part  of  His  mission,  Jesus  not  only  spent  Himself  by  giving 
Himself  without  measure,  but  He  suffered,  besides,  all  sorts 
of  abuses  from  men  from  their  rudeness,  their  indifference, 
their  jealousy,  their  hypocrisy,  their  ingratitude,  their 
treason,  and  their  cruelty.  But  not  a  murmur;  He  knew  nei- 
ther hate  nor  contempt.  Called  blasphemer  by  the  chiefs  of 
the  Jewish  nation ;  treated  like  a  fool ;  considered  a  base 
demagogue  by  the  civil  authorities  and  by  the  representatives 
of  Caesar,  the  head  of  the  civilized  word;  denied  by  Peter, 
the  man  of  His  right;  beaten  with  whips,  and  crowned  with 
thorns ;  fastened  to  the  cross,  the  gibbet  of  those  condemned 
to  death ,  He  stands  everything,  and  the  only  words  that  fall 
from  His  dying  lips  are  :  «  Father,  forgive  them  :  they  know 
not  what  they  do2.  » 


1.  Heb.,  X,  G-7. 

2.  LURE   xxm,  34 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  299 

But  we  cannot  linger  here  looking-  on  at  this  sad  spectacle 
of  a  victim  surrounded  by  all  the  horrors  of  death.  We  must 
penetrate  beneath  the  surface  and  behold  the  very  soul  of 
our  Savior,  if  we  would  learn  the  extent  of  the  sacrifice  He 
is  making.  This  awful  dealh  was  in  accordance  with  His  will, 
just  as  were  the  countless  humiliations  that  led  up  to  it.  Yes, 
Jesus  accepted  this  sacrifice ;  and  crushing  as  it  appears  to  us, 
it  is  but  a  faint  tongue  to  tell  the  sorrows  that  pierced  His 
heart.  But  whence  this  extreme  sorrow?  It  springs  from 
His  viewing  the  sins  of  men  living  lives  obstinately  opposed 
to  the  will  of  God ;  it  comes  from  the  love  that  He  bears  His 
heavenly  Father;  from  His  burning  desire  to  reconcile 
mankind  to  His  Father,  by  wiping  out  all  sin  from  the  world. 
Such  are  the  sentiments  that  swell  the  heart  of  Jesus.  In 
these  dispositions  of  sorrowful  anguish,  of  love,  and  of 
divine  magnanimity,  Christ  the  Redeemer,  in  the  name  of 
men  of  all  times  and  of  all  lands,  in  the  name  of  all  humanity 
sprung  from  the  sinful  Adam,  offers  His  sorrow  and  His 
bruised  humanity  to  wipe  out  the  sins  of  the  world.  When 
the  task  is  accomplished,  He  dies  contented  :  Consummatum 
est. 

Such  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Redemption,  considered  as 
a  whole.  We  shall  now  proceed  to  examine  its  various 
aspects,  and  to  make  each  aspect  the  object  of  our  minute 
investigation.  We  shall  take  up  separately  the  fact  of  the 
Redemption;  the  character  of  this  fact,  or  vicarious  satisfac- 
tion; and  its  nature,  or  the  icork  of  the  Redemption  in  itself 
Finally,  we  shall  study  the  three  offices  of  Christ  the  Redeemer 
and  the  homage  that  we  owe  Him. 

This  will  be  done  in  five  chapters,  as  follows  : 

Chapter  I.  -  -  The  Fact  of  the  Redemption. 
Chapter  II.  --  Vicarious  Satisfaction. 
Chapter  III.  -  -  The  Work  of  the  Redemption. 
Chapter  IV.  —  The  Three  Offices  of  Christ  the  Redeemer. 
Chapter  V.  —  The  Worship  of  Christ  the  Redeemer. 


CHAPTER  FIRST 

THE   FACT   OF   THE   REDEMPTION 

As  a  result  of  the  sin  of  the  first  man,  all  men  are  born 
in  sin.  They  are,  furthermore,  all  subject  to  concupiscence. 
Though  concupiscence  is  not  sin,  still  it  is  responsible  for  a 
great  many  sins. 

Our  condition,  therefore,  on  coming  into  this  world,  is 
truly  one  of  slavery.  Besides  the  fact  we  carry  about  with 
us  a  weight,  as  it  were,  that  hampers  our  souls  in  their 
noblest  flights,  we  always  feel  a  powerful  inclination  to  sin. 

Now,  Jesus  Christ,  by  His  suffering  and  death,  offered 
expiation  for  the  sins  of  men. 

Before  giving  us  the  life  of  grace,  which  was  to  remove 
from  us  the  stain  of  sin  and  to  hold  in  check  the  evil  propen- 
sities of  our  nature,  God  willed  that  Ihe  homage  of  reparation 
be  offered  Him.  This  Christ  rendered  to  God  by  offering  an 
expiation  in  reparation,  an  expiation  that  was  the  price 
demanded  by  God's  justice,  and  He  thereby  broke  the  fetters 
of  sin  and  released  us  from  its  bondage.  It  was  by  His 
sufferings  and  death  that  Christ  reclaimed  all  men  from  the 
servitude  of  sin. 

This  is  the  doctrine  which  the  Church  holds  on  the  mystery 
of  our  Redemption.  It  is  found  in  the  Nicene  creed1, 
that  of  Constantinople2  and  the  Athanasian  creed3;  and 


1.  DENZ.,  54. 

2.  DENZ.,  86. 

3.  DENZ.,  40. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  301 

almost  every  ecumenical  council  renewed  the  definition1. 
We  shall  now  examine  the  origin  of  this  doctrine  in  Holy 
Writ  and  in  the  Tradition  of  the  Fathers;  then  we  shall  study 
its  exposition  and  its  synthesis,  as  given  by  the  theologians 
of  the  Middle  Ages. 

ARTICLE  I 
Holy  Scripture. 


THE     DOCTRINE     OF     THE    REDEMPTION    IN     THE    OLD     TESTAMENT, 

The  Prophecy  of  Isaias.  —  God,  whose  goodness  and 
mercy  are  infinite,  would  not  leave  man  without  hope.  From 
the  time  of  the  fall,  glimpses  are  given  here  and  there  of  the 
main  outlines  of  the  Redemption  2. 

A  Messias  was  to  come,  who  was  to  expiate  by  his  suffe- 
rings the  sins  of  the  people.  This  Messias  is  prefigured  in 
the  sacrifice  of  Abraham3,  and  in  the  various  Levitical  sacri- 
fices, especially  in  that  of  the  Paschal  Lamb.  The  psalmist4 
pictures  this  Messias  in  song,  the  seer  foretells  him  in  pro- 


1.  See  the  councils  of  Ephesus,  DENZ.,  122 ;  of  the  Lateran,  DENZ.,  429;  of 
Florence,  DENZ.,  711 :  and  of  Trent,  DENZ.,  794-795,  799. 

2.  Genes.,  in,  15.    In  this  verse,  God  says  that  he  will  put  enmity  between 
the  serpent,  the  symbol  of  the  devil,  and  the  woman,  as  well  as  all  her  pos- 
terity.   But,  «  it  is  not  only  to  Jesus  Christ  and  to  ilis  work  that  this  oracle 
applies.    While  Jesus  represents  in  an  eminent  manner  the  posterity  of  the 
woman,  there  are  other  children  included  in  that  posterity.    These  are   the 
faithful  of  both  the  Old  and  the  New  covenants,  the  best  part  of  mankind,  all 
the  children  of  God  who  have  been  or  who  will  be,  in  the  course  of  the  ages, 
in  struggle  with  the  posterity  of  the  serpent,  that  is  with  the  ennemies  of  God 
and  of  His  reign,  who  serve  under  the  spirit  of  evil.    This  promise  has  been 
called  the  I'rotevangelion,  because  it  is  the  foreshadowing  of  the  Gospel,  as  it 
were,  or  faint  outline  of  the  Messias  ».    A.  CRAMPON,  La  Sainte  liible,  p.  3,  note. 

3.  Gen.,  xxn. 

4.  Ps.  XXH. 


302  GOD. 

phecy.  Nowhere  do  we  find  the  doctrine  more  fully  deve- 
loped than  in  the  second  part  of  Isaias1.  The  circumstances 
of  the  Savior's  passion  are  there  described  down  to  the  most 
minute  detail.  His  death  is  represented  as  an  expiation  for 
the  sins  of  the  people.  This  part  of  Isaias  has  been  justly 
called  the  Passio  secundum  Isaiam  . 

This  is  the  important  document  that  critics  have  vainly 
assailed,  in  order  to  convince  men  that  the  delineation  of  the 
suffering  Just  One  is  but  a  poetic  personification  of  the  just 
ones  in  Israel,  who  were  to  be  stricken  to  save  the  nation2  : 

LU,  13-15  :  <(  Behold  my  Servant,  he  will  prosper;  he 
shall  be  exalted  and  extolled,  and  shall  be  exceeding  high. 
As  many  have  been  astonished  at  him,  so  inglorious  was  his 
visage,  so  strange  his  form  among  men,  so  will  many  rejoice 
in  him ;  kings  shall  shut  their  mouths  at  him,  for  they  shall 
see  what  they  have  not  been  told,  they  shall  learn  what  they 
have  not  heard.  » 

LIII,  1-11  :  «  Who  hath  believed  our  report?  And  to 
whom  is  the  arm  of  Yahweh  revealed?  And  he  shall  grow 
up  as  a  tender  plant  before  him,  and  as  a  root  out  of  a  thirsty 
ground.  There  is  no  beauty  in  him,  nor  comeliness;  and 
we  have  seen  him,  and  there  was  no  sightliness,  that  we 
should  be  desirous  of  him.  Despised,  and  the  most  abject 
of  men,  a  man  of  sorrows;  and  acquainted  with  our  infir- 
mities. And  his  look  was  as  it  were  hidden  and  despised, 
whereupon  we  esteemed  him  nothing.  Surely  he  hath  borne 
our  infirmities  and  carried  our  sorrows.  And  we  thought 
him  as  it  were  a  leper,  and  as  one  struck  by  God.  But  he 
was  wounded  for  our  iniquities,  he  was  bruised  for  our  sins. 
The  chastisement  of  our  peace  was  upon  him,  and  by  his 


1.  Is.  ui,  13.  Lin,  11. 

2.  This  hypothesis  which,  some  years   ago  numbered  many  adherents,  is 
being  more  and  more  given  up.    To-day  almost  everyone  admits  the  individu- 
ality of  the  Servant  of  God.    The  various  opinions  on  this  question  are  given  in  the 
work  of  CONDAMIN,  Le  lime  d'Isaie,  p.  328-329. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  303 

bruises  we  are  healed.  All  we  like  sheep  have  gone  astray, 
everyone  hath  turned  aside  into  his  own  way;  and  Yahweh 
hath  laid  on  him  the  iniquity  of  us  all.  He  was  offered 
because  it  was  his  own  will,  and  he  opened  not  his  mouth. 
He  shall  be  led  as  a  sheep  to  the  slaughter,  and  shall  be 
dumb  as  a  lamb  before  his  shearer,  and  he  shall  not  open 
his  mouth.  He  was  taken  away  from  distress  and  from 
judgment.  Who  shall  declare  his  generation?  Because  he 
is  cut  off  the  land  of  the  living ;  for  the  wickedness  of  my 
people  have  I  struck  him.  And  he  shall  give  the  ungodly 
for  his  burial,  and  the  rich  for  his  death.  Because  he  hath 
done  no  iniquity,  neither  was  there  deceit  in  his  mouth. 
And  Yahweh  was  pleased  to  bruise  him  in  infirmity  :  if  he 
shall  lay  down  his  life  for  sin,  he  snail  see  a  long-lived  seed, 
and  the  will  of  Yahweh  shall  be  prosperous  in  his  hand  ». 

Did  Christ's  Contemporaries  Expect  a  Suffering  Messias? 
—  Strange  as  may  seem,  the  contemporaries  of  the  Savior 
had  come  to  put  their  hopes  entirely  in  a  glorious  Messias. 
He  was  to  appear  suddenly ;  and  after  the  final  judgment,  he 
was  to  reestablish  the  Kingdom  of  Israel,  and  was  to  be  its 
King.  In  his  reign,  there  would  be  no  bounds  to  the 
prosperity  of  the  Kingdom.  Holiness  also  was  to  rule;  the 
life  of  God  was  to  reign  in  the  hearts  of  men,  for  the  King- 
Messias  was  to  be  also  a  great  Prophet. 

Some  remnants,  however,  of  the  old  tradition  of  a 
suffering  Messias  remained ;  but  these  had  but  few  advocates, 
and  they  exercised  but  little  influence  upon  the  masses  *. 

It  would  seem,  too,  that  the  doctrine  of  the  transfer  of 
expiation  and  of  merit  should  have  persevered  as  a  common 
teaching,  at  least  in  the  schools.  It  was  admitted  that  the 
just  could  expiate  and  merit  for  the  guilty.  Only  a  century 
before,  this  doctrine  had  inspired  the  hearts  of  the  Machabees 
with  admirable  sentiments  of  devotion  :  «  But  I,  like  my 

J.  Cf.  M.-J.  LAGRANUE,  Le  Messianisme  chez  les  Juifs,  pp.  286-256. 


304  GOD. 

brethren,  offer  up  my  life  and  my  body  for  the  laws  of  our 
fathers  :  calling  upon  God  to  be  speedily  merciful  to  our 
nation,  and  that  thou  by  torments  and  stripes  mayst  confess 
that  he  alone  is  God.  But  in  me  and  in  my  brethren  the 
wrath  of  the  Almighty,  which  hath  justly  beenbrought  upon 
all  our  nation,  shall  cease  »  i. 

These  ideas  were  the  toothing-stones  of  their  hopes. 
Before  entering  upon  His  glory,  the  Savior  was  indeed,  to 
Jive  in  humiliation  and  suffering,  that  He  might  expiate  the 
sins  of  his  people.  But  if  we  would  see  the  full  and  clear 
revelation  of  this  doctrine,  it  is  to  the  New  Testament  that 
we  must  go. 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    THE    REDEMPTION    IN    THE    NEW   TESTAMENT. 

The  Doctrine  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels.  —  «  And  his 
name  will  be  called  Jesus  »  2,  said  the  angel  to  Joseph,  «  for 
he  shall  save  his  people  from  their  sins  »  3.  Jesus,  through- 
out His  Gospel,  said  that  He  was  sent  to  save  men  :  «  The 
Son  of  man  is  come  to  find  and  to  save  that  which  was 
lost  »  4. 

What  is  the  nature  of  this  salvation?  Men  are  sinners; 
sin  separates  them  from  God,  blinds  them,  makes  them 
morally  and  physically  sick,  oppresses  them.  Jesus  came  to 
remit  their  sins,  and  thereby  to  bring  them  back  to  God,  to 
assist  and  comfort  them  both  in  body  and  soul,  and  to  deliver 
them.  That  is  salvation. 

But  let  us  barken  to  His  own  words  :  «  Come  to  me  », 
He  says,  «  all  ye  that  labor,  and  are  burdened,  and  I  will 


1.  II  Machab.,  vn,  37-38. 

2.  Jesus  (from  the  Hebrew  Yehoschoua',  contracted,  after  the  exile,  into 
Yeschoua',  literally  Yahwefi  is  Savior),  that  is,  Savior. 

3.  MAT,,  i,  21. 

4.  LUKE,  xix,  10. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  303 

refresh  you  *.  He  refers  here  1o  weariness  of  soul  and 
sickness  of  body.  Then  let  us  look  at  His  works.  Jesus 
tells  the  paralytic  that  his  sins  are  forgiven  him ;  and,  because 
the  Pharisees  are  scandalized  at  this,  He  at  once  cures  the 
sick  man  of  his  disease.  This  He  does,  He  tells  us,  in  order 
to  show  men  that  when  He  told  the  sick  man  that  his  sins 
were  forgiven,  He  spoke  the  truth,  for  His  words  have  the 
power  to  produce  this  effect,  as  they  can  see  when  Jesus 
commands  the  disease  to  leave  the  sick  one  2.  Jesus  forgives 
the  sins  of  the  sinful  woman3.  As  a  condition  for  the  remis- 
sion of  sin,  he  requires  the  forgiveness  of  injuries4,  humility 
of  heart 5,  trust  in  God  °  and  in  Him  whom  God  has  sent 7,  a 
confidence  resting  on  love  and  assurance ;  and  above  all  He 
calls  for  penitence  8,  that  is,  repentance  and  change  of  heart, 
TJ  [juiTavcia,  for  this  disposition  includes  and  supplements  all 
the  others. 

While  working  the  salvation  of  men  through  the  remis- 
sion of  sins,  Jesus  foresees  and  accepts  death  on  the  cross. 
At  the  very  beginning  of  His  mission  in  Galilee,  He  says  : 
«  My  disciples  cannot  fast  while  the  bridegroom  is  with  them ; 
but  the  day  will  come  when  the  bridegroom  will  be  taken 
away,  and  then  they  will  do  penance  9  ».  This  is  but  a 
covert  allusion ;  but  at  the  end  of  this  period  of  His  ministry, 
after  Peter's  confession,  Jesus  speaks  of  His  death  in  plain 
terms.  «  Then  he  began  to  show  to  His  disciples  that  the 
Son  of  man  must  suffer  many  things  and  be  of  rejected  b} 
the  ancients,  and  by  the  high  priests  and  the  scribes,  and  be 


1.  MAT.,  xi,  28. 

2.  Mat.,  ix,  2-7.  —  MARK,  11,  5-12.  — LUKE,  v,  20-25. 

3.  LUKE,  vii,  47-48. 

4.  MAT.,  vi,  14-15.  —  MARK,  xi,  25-26.  —  LUKE,  vi,  37. 

5.  LUKE,  xviii,  10-15. 

6.  LUKE,  xv,  11-32. 

7.  LUKE,  vii,  47-48. 

8.  MAT.,  ix,  15;  xi,  20-21.  —  MARK,  i,  15.  —  LUKE,  Mil,  3-5. 

9.  MAT.,  ix,  15.  —  MARK,  n,  20.—  LIKE,  v,  35. 

T.  i.  20 


306  GOD. 

put  to  death,  and  after  three  days  rise  again1.     Note  that 
the  Savior  uses  the  word  «  must  »,  oel,  which  implies  more 
than  a  mere  fitness,  and  implies  the  idea  of  strict  obi  gation. 
From  this  time  on,  the  Savior  frequently  speaks  oi   His 
death.     On   the  occasion    of  the  miracles  that  excited    the 
en  husiasm  of  His  disciples,  He  said  to  them  :  «  The   Son  of 
man  will  be    delivered  into  the  hands  of  men  :  they  shall 
kill  him,  and  the  third  day  he  shall  rise  again2  ».     And  when 
going  up  to  Jerusalem  for  the  la^t  time,  Jesus  took  the  twelve 
aside,  on  the  way,  and  said  to  them  :  «  Behold  we  go  up  to 
Jerusalem,    and  the   Son   of  man  shall  be  betrayed  to  the 
chief  priests  and  the  scribes,  and  they  shall  condemn  him  to 
death,  and  shall  deliver  him  to  the  Gentiles  to  be  mocked, 
and  scourged,    and  crucified;  and  the    third  day  he  shall 
rise  again  »  8.     From  that  time  on,  the  thought  of  His  death 
never  leaves  Him.     He  asks  the  sons  of  Zebedee  whether 
they  will  have  the  courage  to  drink  of  His  chalice  4.     In  the 
midst  of  the  glories  of  the  Transfiguration,  He  discourses 
with  Moses  and  Elias  on  His  approaching  death  5.     He  is  to 
die  at  Jerusalem,  and  His  soul  awaits  this  baptism  of  blocd  6. 
He  is  the  Son  whom  the  vine-dressers  are  to  put  to  death  7. 
In  the  ointment  which  Mary  Magdalen  pours  upon  His  feet, 
He  sees  the  anticipation  of  His    burial 8.     And  finally  after 
having  drunk  the  farewell  cup  9,  on  the  night  of  H  s  agony, 
in  spite  of  His  human  dread,  He  freely  accepts  the  chalice 
from  the  hands  of  His  heavenly  Father  <0,  and  willingly  gives 
Himself  up  to  His  enemies. 


1.  MAT.,  xvi,  21.  —  MARK,  vm,  31.  —  LUKE,  ix,  22;  xvn,  25. 

2.  MAT.,  XVH,  21-22.  —  MARK,   ix,  30-31.  —  LUKE,  ix,  44-45. 

3.  MAT.,  xx,  17-20.  —  MARK,  x,  32-35.  —  LUKE,  xin,  31-35. 

4.  MAT.,  xx,  22.  —MARK,  x,  38. 

5.  LUKE,  ix.31, 

6.  LUKE,  xn,  50. 

7.  MAT.,  xxi,  38.  —  MARK,  xn,  7-8.  —  LUKE,  xx,  14-15. 

8.  MAT.,  xxvi,  12.  — MAIIK,  xiv,  8. 

9.  MAT.,  xxvi,  29.  —  MARK,  xiv,  25.  —  LUKE,  xxn,  40-47. 

10.  MAT.,  xxvi,  37-47.  —  MARK,  xiv,  34-42.  —  LUKE,  xxn,  40-47. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  307 

From  all  these  texts,  the  genuineness  of  which  can  he 
questioned  by  none  but  the  most  arbitrary  criticism  ',  it  is 
evident  that  Jesus  foresaw  His  death  and  accepted  it  as  an 
obligation.  Nor  could  it  be  said  that  this  obligation  was 
purely  accidental,  a  mere  outcome  of  the  circumstances. 
«  The  Son  of  man  must  be  put  to  death  »2,  said  the  Savior; 
and  again,  «  that  which  is  written  must  be  fulfilled  in  me  : 
He  has  been  numbered  among  the  wicked  »3.  Christ,  then, 
had  to  die,  for  God  His  Father  had  so  willed  it,  and  the 
prophets  had  foretold  it.  His  death  was  one  of  the  duties 
of  His  Messianic  function,  and  it  was  a  duty  inherent  in  this 
function,  according  to  the  disposition  of  God  Himself  4. 

We  may  go  even  further  and  say  that  the  Savior  es- 
tablished a  real  relation  betwen  His  death  and  the  salvation 
of  man. 

The  mother  of  the  sons  of  Zebedee  had  just  made  her 
vain  request.  Jesus  took  occasion  of  this  to  tell  His  disciples 
that  His  kingdom  is  not  like  the  kingdoms  of  the  princes  of 
this  world.  In  Christ's  kingdom  whoever  would  be  great 
must  become  the  servant  of  all ;  «  for  the  Son  of  man  also  is 


1.  This  Loisy  says  :  i From  the  time  of  the  confession  of  Simon  Peter,  Jesus 
is  supposed  to  have  discussed  on  several  occasions  the  fate  that  awaked  him  as 
Messias  ».    But  in  these  discourses,  the  same  author  says  that  «  there  appears  no 
formal  sentence  retained  as  the  Lord's  saying  »;  their  «  general  purport  »  besides, 
«  is    based  upon  accomplished   facts  an  I   upon   the  theme  of  early  Christian, 
preaching  ».    L'tivangile  et  t'tiglise,  p.  85. 

2.  LUKK,  ix,  22. 

3.  LURE,  xxii,  37. 

4.  a  Ttiis  duty  belongs  to  the  Messianic  function  of  which  He  is  the  titular  : 
His  death  is  an  undertaking  attaching  to  His  mission  as  founder  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  ».    V.  ROSK,  Studies  on  the  Gospels,  p.  243.  —  «  From  all  these  Iraitsit 
must  be  concluded  that  death  did    not  surprise  Jesus  as  something  altogether 
unforeseen,  that  He  did  not  go  to  His  death  as  to  an  inevitable  end,  bul  rather 
that  He  predicted  it  and  accepted  it  as  a  duty.    He  is  the   Son  of  man;  He  is 
the  Servant;    a  life  of  suffering  is  part  of  the  work   of  the   Servant,  and  it 
looms  up  before  him  ».    P.  BATIITOL,  Enseignement  de  Jesut,  p.  244.  —  «  Not 
only  did  the  death  of  the  Messias  seem  to  impose  itself  on  Him  as  a  fact,  it  seemed, 
also  obligatory  as  a  duty  ».    J.  RmfcRK,  The  Doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  p.  92. 


308  GOD. 

not  come  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister  and  to  give 
his  life  a  ransom  for  many  (xat  Boiivai  TYJV  <]wx^v  au-rou  X'JTpov  avTi, 
zoXXwv)  »  '.  Mark  well  the  Savior's  expression  :  He  will 
give  His  life,  and  this  as  a  ransom,  X-j-pov,  a  ransom  for  many. 
In  biblical  language,  the  word  Xthpcv  means  the  price 
paid  either  for  the  purchase  of  something,  as  a  field  2,  or 
slaves3,  or  to  free  someone  from  slavery  4,  or  even  from 
the  penalty  of  death  5.  There  can  be  not  even  the  slightest 
doubt  but  Jesus  promised  to  give  His  life  to  free  men  from 
slavery.  But  what  kind  of  slavery?  This  Christ  explains 
at  the  Last  Supper.  «  Having  taken  bread,  He  blessed 
it  and  broke  it,  giving  it  to  His  Apostles,  saying  :  Take  ye, 
and  eat ;  this  is  my  body.  In  like  manner  He  took  the  chalice, 
and  having  given  thanks,  He  gave  it  to  them  saying  : 
Drink  ye  all  of  this,  for  this  is  my  blood,  [the  blood]  of  the 
New  Testament,  shed  for  the  multitude  in  the  remission  of 
sins6  ».  Christ,  then,  sheds  His  blood  to  seal  —  nay  more,  to 
establish  —  the  new  Covenant.  And  the  terms  of  this  Covenant 
will  be  these  :  Sin  sets  up  a  barrier  betwen  God  and  His 
people;  by  the  new  Covenant  sin  will  be  forgiven.  Hence 
St.  Matthew  says  that  Jesus  offers  His  life  for  the  remission  of 
the  sins  of  the  people,  to  free  them  from  the  slavery  of  sin, 
and  to  obtain  for  them  salvation 7. 


1.  MAT.,  xx,  28.  —  MARK,  x,  45. 

2.  Lev.,  xxv,  25. 

3.  Lev.,  xxv,  50-51. 

4.  Is.,  XLV,  13. 

5.  Prov.,  xni,  8. 

6.  MAT.,  xxvi,  26-27.    Cf.  MARK,  xiv,  22-25.  —  LUKE,  xxn,  19-20.  —1  Cor. 
xi,  23-26. 

7.  As  we  have  seen,  the  declaration  following  the  request  of  the  sons  of 
Zebedee,  and  the  narrative  of  the  Last  Supper,  show  clearly  the  relation  that 
existed  between  Christ's  death  and  the  salvation  of  men.    Rationalistic  criticism 
has  attacked  these  passages.    Loisy  in  particular  has  attempted  to  cast  doubt 
upon  the  authenticity  of  the  synoptic  Gospels  by  saying  that  whatever  appears 
in  them  concerning  the  expiatory  character  of  the  death  of  Christ,  may  be  due 
to  the  influence  of  St.  Paul's  theology,  /  Cor.,  xi,  23-26.    Cf.  L'Evangile  et 
I'Eglise,  pp.  115-116.  —  Autour  d'un  petit  livre,  pp.  237-238.  —  Les  tivangiles 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  309 

The  synoptic  Gospels,  therefore,  make  it  clear  that 
throughout  the  Gospel  Jesus  always  said  that  He  had  been 
sent  to  save  men;  that  He  foresaw  His  death  and  accepted  it 
as  a  duty;  and  that  He  established  a  real  relation  between 
His  death  and  the  salvation  of  men. 

The  Teaching  of  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  John.  — 
The  Word,  both  Life  and  Light,  became  man  in  order  to 
bring  to  men  the  fulness  of  His  life  and  light1.  He  is  the 
bread  of  life  2,  the  vine  that  gives  life  to  the  branches  3,  a 
fountain  of  living  water*.  Hence,  Christ  came  into  the 
world  to  give  life  and  light,  in  other  words,  to  bring  sal- 
vation. 

He  saves  men  by  means  of  His  teaching  and  His  miracles : 
but  above  all  by  the  offering  of  His  life.  «  I  am  the  good 
shepherd.  The  good  shepherd  lays  down  his  life  for  his 
sheep...  And  I,  too,  give  my  life  for  my  sheep5.  And 
elsewhere  He  represents  Himself  as  the  bread  that  came 
down  from  heaven  and  gives  life  eternal ;  and  this  bread  is 
His  «  flesh  for  the  life  of  the  world  6  ».  His  sacrifice  will 
bear  rich  fruit  :  «  Unless  the  grain  of  wheat  falling  into  the 
ground  die;  itself  remaineth  alone;  but,  if  it  die,  it  bringeth 
forth  much  fruit  ».  And  this  law  obtains  in  the  spiritual 
world  as  well  :  «  He  that  loveth  his  life  shall  lose  it;  and  he 
that  hateth  his  life  in  this  world  keepeth  it  unto  life  eternal 7  » . 
Through  His  death  the  Savior  will  draw  all  men  to  Him  8. 


Synoptiques,  vol.  II,  pp.  534-544.  But  Loisy  offers  no  serious  argument  in 
proof  of  his  assertion.  What  offends  his  critical  sense  in  the  texts  just  quoted, 
is  the  fact  that  the  doctrine  they  contain  is  of  the  highest  importance. 

1.  JOHN,  i,  4,  16. 

2.  JOHN,  vi. 

3.  JOHN,  xv,  1-7. 

4.  JOHN,  iv,  10-15. 

5.  JOHN,  x,  10-15. 

6.  JOHN,  vi,  52. 

7.  JOHN,  xn,  24-25. 

8.  JOHN,  in,  32. 


310  GOD. 

Now  this  he  said,  adds  the  evangelist,  signifying  what  death 
he  should  die1. 

Thus  according  to  St.  John's  teaching,  Jesus  came  into  the 
world  to  save  men,  and  the  principal  means  to  this  end  was 
His  death.  The  doctrine  of  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved, 
bears  out  the  teaching  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels. 

St.  John  insists  more,  however,  upon  the  motives  of 
the  Redemption.  Love  prompted  God  the  Father  to  decree 
the  salvation  of  men  through  the  giving  of  His  only  Son. 
«  God  so  loved  the  world  as  to  give  his  only  Son,  in  order  that 
he  that  believes  in  him  may  not  perish,  but  may  have  life 
everlasting-  ».  And  this  mission  the  Son  takes  up  freely3, 
and  out  of  love.  «  I  love  the  Father;  and  as  the  Father 
hath  given  me  commandment,  so  do  I*  ». 

The  teaching  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles.  —  Jesus  saved  men 
by  His  death.  This  doctrine,  so  precisely  stated  in  the  four 
Gospels,  is  the  central  point  of  St.  Paul's  teaching. 

As  a  result  of  the  sin  of  Adam,  all  men  are  born  in  sin  5, 
that  is,  deprived  of  the  holiness  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  or 
more  simply,  deprived  of  grace.  They  are,  moreover,  subject 
to  the  law  of  the  flesh,  which  invades  the  intellect,  the 
will,  and  the  inferior  powers  of  sensation,  representation, 
and  desire  —  concupiscence  in  its  threefold  form.  As  a 
result,  all  men  are,  in  the  words  of  the  Apostle,  under  the 
bondage  of  sin6;  and  in  such  a  state  they  are  the  enemies 
of  God7,  and  the  objects  of  His  just  wrath8. 

To  the  slavery  of  sin,  the  Mosaic  law  has  added  another 


1.  JOHN,  in,  33. 

2.  JOHN,  in,  16. 

3.  JOHN,  x,  17-18. 

4.  JOHN,  xiv,  31. 

5.  Rom.,  v,  19. 

6.  Rom.,  VI,  7,  16-17,  20;  VII,  14. 

7.  Rom.,  v,  10;  xi,  28.  —  Col.  i,  21. 

8.  Rom.,  n,  5,  8.  —  Ephes.,  H,  3. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  3H 

fetter.  The  law  in  itself  is  holy  and  spiritual ;  but  in  these 
later  times,  men  are  more  given  to  the  things  of  the  flesh 
than  in  earlier  times,  and  they  are  practically  no  longer  in  a 
condition  to  lulfil  the  law.  And  since  the  law  still  continues 
to  show  them  their  duty,  without  giving  them  the  power  to 
perform  it,  it  has  become  an  occasion  of  ruin  and  has  made 
sin  abound1. 

Though  men  are  in  this  sad  plight,  God,  impelled  by 
His  bountiful  love2,  determined  to  save  them  by  reconcili- 
ation. When  the  fulness  of  time  that  he  had  determined 
was  accomplished,  God  revealed  his  plan  to  restore  all 
things  in  Christ 3. 

Then  Jesus  Christ  appeared  as  the  one  charged  with  the 
fulfilment  of  this  great  mystery.  In  some  passages  the 
Apostle  connects  our  salvation  with  the  entire  mission  of  our 
Savior4;  but  more  often  he  ascribes  it  to  the  death  of  Jesus 
on  the  cross.  «  Being  justified  »,  he  writes  to  the  Romans, 
«  freely  by  his  grace,  through  the  Redemption  that  is  in 
Christ  Jesus,  whom  God  hath  proposed  to  be  a  propitiation, 
through  faith  in  Ms  blood,  to  the  showing  of  his  juslice,  for 
the  remission  of  former  sins;  through  the  forbearance  of 
God,  for  the  showing  of  his  justice  in  this  time;  for  that  he 
himself  may  be  just,  and  the  jtistifier  of  him  that  is  of  the 
faith  of  Jesus  Christ5  ».  A  little  farther  on,  writing  in  the 
same  strain,  he  says  :  «  For...  when  we  were  enemies,  we 
were  reconciled  to  God  by  the  death  of  his  Son  c.  There 
are  many  texts  in  which  the  Apostle  teaches  this  doctrine. 
We  may  cite  farther  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians.  «  It 
hath  well  pleased  the  Father  that  all  fulness  should  dwell  in 
him;  and  through  him  to  reconcile  all  things  unto  himself, 


1.  Gal.,  in,  13;  IT,  5-31;  —  Rom.,  vn,  4-13;  vm,  3-4. 

2.  Rom.,  v,  8  ;  —  £pA.,  I,  9. 

3.  Kph.,  i,  9-10. 

4.  //  Cor,  v,  18-19 ;  —  Eph.,  u,  4-8. 

5.  Rom,,  in,  24-26. 

6.  Rom.,  v,  10. 


312  GOD. 

making  peace  through  the  blood  of  his  cross,  hoth  as  to  the 
things  that  are  on  earth,  and  the  things  that  are  in  heaven. 
And  you,  whereas  you  were  some  time  alienated  and  enemies 
in  mind  in  evil  works  :  yet  now  he  hath  reconciled  in  the 
body  of  his  flesh  through  death,  to  present  you  holy  and 
unspotted,  and  blameless  before  him,  if  so  you  continue 
grounded  and  settled  in  the  faith1  ».  In  the  next  chapter, 
the  Apostle  uses  even  stronger  language.  «  You  were 
dead  »,  he  says,  «  in  your  sins,  and  the  uncircumcision  of 
your  flesh ;  he  hath  quickened  you  together  with  him 
[Christ],  forgiving  you  all  offences.  He  has  blotted  out  the 
decree  that  was  against  us,  which  was  contrary  to  us  (-b  xa6' 
^;j.o5v  ^apofpafcv  7oTg  Soy^aaivo  ^v  tasvavTiov  r^I'v);  and  he  hath 
taken  the  same  out  of  the  way,  fastening  it  to  the  cross  2  » , 
just  as  we  do  with  a  cancelled  deed,  when  we  file  it  away3. 

It  was  through  love,  indeed,  that  God  decreed  the  sal- 
vation of  men;  yet  he  would  not  grant  them  salvation  by 
a  pardon  pure  and  simple.  His  justice  demanded  some 
expiation. 

This  twofold  consideration  brings  us  face  to  face  with  the 
mystery  of  our  Redemption.  God's  justice  (Sixaiodivrj  Oscu), 
in  the  language  of  the  Apostle,  is  God's  holiness  seeking  to 
communicate  itself  to  men,  but  impeded  in  its  communi- 
cation, by  sin4.  In  His  justice,  or  holiness,  however,  God 
did  not  choose  to  save  men  until  they  had  satisfied  for  their 
sins  by  a  proper  expiation.  By  abusing  his  freedom,  Adam 
insulted  God  and  transgressed  the  positive  command  laid 


1.  Col.,  I,  19-23. 

2.  Col.,  II,  13-14. 

3.  Cf.  J.  RIVIERE,  op.  cit.,  i,  p.  47. 

4.  This  is  the  meaning  which  J.  TIXERONT,  History  of  Dogma,  vol.  i,  p.  79, 
attaches  to  the  word  justice    (God's)  in  [St.  Paul;  —  J.  RIVIERE,  op.    cit. 
p.  49;  —  A.  LEMONNYEU,   Epitres  de  saint  Paul,  vol.  I,  p.  254;  —  F.  PRAT, 
Theologie  de  saint  Paul,  p.  263.  —  E.  TOBAC,  in  his  remarkable  thesis  on  le 
Probleme  de  la  justification  dans  saint  Paul,  pp.  113-130,  takes  the  expres- 
sion to  mean  God's  justifying  or  saving  activity. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  313 

down  by  the  Almighty.  In  the  first  man  all  his  descendants 
sinned,  and  all  have  fallen  afterwards  into  a  number  of 
personal  faults.  Before  forgiving  them,  God  required 
expiation.  The  love  of  God  prompting  Jesus  to  render  free 
obedience  even  to  the  death  of  the  cross ;  such  is  the  expi- 
ation offered  by  Our  Lord  to  His  heavenly  Father,  in  the  name 
of  all  men.  Then  God's  justifying  justice  or  His  sanctifying 
holiness  is  no  longer  opposed  to  what  He  sanctifies  and 
justifies,  to  the  saving  of  men  by  their  reconciliation  to  Him- 
self, and  to  their  forgiveness  by  the  remission  of  their  sins. 

It  will  now  be  easy  to  deduce  from  the  Apostle's 
teachings  the  chief  characteristics  of  the  Redemption  consi- 
dered in  itself. 

1°  Jesus  expiates  the  sins  of  men  by  rendering  out  of 
love  His  perfect  and  free  obedience. 

2°  The  Apostle  calls  this  expiation  a  ransom  *  (avTtXutpov), 
the  price  of  the  redemption  of  men  from  the  slavery  of  sin, 
or  more  concretely,  our  Redemption  (a^oXikpioas),  our 
purchase*. 

3°  The  Redemption  was  brought  about  by  the  substitution 
of  Christ  for  sinful  man.  This  was  not  a  merely  penal 
substitution;  as  though  God,  concerned  only  about  the 
payment  of  a  penalty,  had  accepted  this  payment  from  Christ 
rather  than  from  men.  It  was  rather  the  gift  of  Christ,  an 
oblation  carried  even  to  Calvary.  It  was  a  gift  freely  given, 
and  prompted  by  the  most  perfect  love  3. 


1.  I  Tim.,  ii,  5-6. 

2.  Rom.,  m,  24-27  ;  —  Eph.,  i,  7;  —  Col.,  I,  14;  —  Tit.,  H,  14. 

3.  Cf.  J.  HmfeRE,  op.  cit.,  pp.  55-58.    This  interpretation,  it  seems  to  us 
is  a  decisive  blow  to  the  objections  of  Protestants,  according  to  whom  our 
Catholic  doctrine  of  a  real  and  vicarious  Redemption  is  founded  upon  a  misin- 
terpretation ot  the  text  by  the  Vulgate.    Where  the  Apostle  says  that  Christ, 
died  «ept(/  Thexs.  v,  10),  une'p  (//  Cor.,    v,    14,   20),  the  Vulgate  translates, 
pro.    Now,  it  is  argued  this  preposition  pro  is  the  translation  for   the  prepo- 
sition 4vtt,  and  not  for  Tttpi  or  G»t£p.    The  correct  meaning  of  *ep£  and  of  0*ep  is 
in  behalf  of,  or  more  exactly  in  view  of.    But  it  should  be  remarked  that,  in 
order  to  express  fully  the  thought  of  the  Apostle,  the  preposition  Cmip,  and  not 


314  GOD. 

If  the  individual  would  avail  himself  of  this  salvation, 
he  must  in  a  certain  measure  renew  in  himself  this  very 
obedience  of  Jesus  Christ;  and  the  principle  upon  which  he 
must  fall  back  in  his  self-sacrifice  is  faith.  And  by  faith, 
as  everyone  knows,  the  Apostle  does  not  mean  a  purely 
intellectual  adherence,  or  a  vague  and  barren  confidence, 
but  a  life  resting  upon  a  certitude  that  cannot  be  shaken, 
and  a  life  full  of  hope  and  love. 

ARTICLE  II 
The  Tradition  of  the  Fathers. 

General  Idea.  —  The  doctrine  of  the  Redemption  found 
in  the  synoptic  Gospels  and  in  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  a  doctrine 
that  was  so  thoroughly  analyzed  by  St.  Paul,  formed  a 
complex  whole  that  proved  quite  difficult  of  assimilation. 
While  Tradition  affirmed  the  doctrine,  it  was  slow  to  grasp 
its  elements  in  detail,  and  did  so  only  by  degrees.  We  shall, 
therefore,  treat  the  question  in  accordance  with  its  various 
stages  of  development,  as  found  in  Tradition. 

Apostolic  Fathers  and  Apologists.  —  St.  Clement  held 
that  our  salvation  was  the  result  of  our  Savior's  acquiescence 
to  the  will  of  God  the  Father  in  accepting  death,  and  of  the 
love  that  God  had  for  us.  It  was  the  love  of  God  the  Father 
that  impelled  Him  to  bring  about  our  reconciliation  through 
the  death  of  Christ,  His  only  Son1.  St.  Ignatius  of  Antioch 


avTt  should  be  used.  For,  as  long  as  Our  Lord  offered  more  than  a  merely 
penal  substitution  altogether  passive,  such  a  preposition  as  would  denote  His 
voluntary  intention,  must  be  used.  Nevertheless,  in  suffering  as  He  did,  the 
Savior  truly  expiated  the  sins  of  men;  He  expiated  for  them.  Hence,  the 
meaning  of  ivri  is  contained  in  the  expression  uTrep,  at  least  when  St.  Paul  says 
that  Christ  died  Ou£p  rcavrtov.  This  is  why  our  "S7ulgate  correctly  translates 
CiTiEp  by  pro. 

1.  CLEM.,  Epist.  ad  Cor.,  XLIX,  6  :  «  God  reunited  us  to  himself  by  love  :  it 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  315 

says  that  our  salvation  was  the  sole  object  of  Christ's  mission 
on  earth1.  This  life  of  humiliation  and  suffering,  however, 
won  our  salvation  only  by  being  crowned  by  the  death  on 
the  cross2. 

In  the  epistle  of  Barnabas,  the  doctrine  of  the  Redemption 
assumes  the  complete  proportions  of  a  vast  system  embracing 
both  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament.  Jesus  took  flesh  to 
suffer  death.  By  this  death,  there  were  attained  two  effects  : 
first,  he  annihilated  the  Jewish  race,  as  a  nation;  and  second- 
ly, he  broke  the  covenant3.  The  Jews  believed  themselves 
entitled  in  a  very  special  manner  to  the  paternal  bounty  of 
God ;  but  there  was  nothing  in  this.  God  gave  them  com- 
mandments, and  these  they  interpreted  after  the  manner  of 
the  Pagans*;  God  raised  up  prophets  in  their  midst,  but  the 
Jews  had  not  understood  their  oracles,  and  the  prophets 
they  put  to  death  5.  It  required  but  one  more  offence,  and  the 
wrath  predicted  by  Zachary  would  be  upon  them.  «  They 
will  strike  the  shepherd  of  the  flock,  and  the  sheep  will  be 
dispersed0.  Then,  in  us  who  find  remission  of  sin  in  His 
death,  God  raises  up  unto  himself  a  holy  people.  Sin  is  an 
infraction  of  the  moral  law,  not  of  the  legal  prescriptions  of 
the  Old  Testament 7.  By  the  death  of  the  body  of  Christ,  sin  is 
effaced.  This  effacement  comes  about  not  only  from  the  fact 
that  Christ's  blood  is  poured  out  before  the  throne  of  God, 


was  because  of  the  love  that  God  bore  us  that  Jesus  Christ,  in  accordance  with 
the  will  of  God,  shed  His  blood  for  us,  gave  His  flesh  for  our  flesh,  His  soul 
for  our  son  Is.  » 

1.  ICN.,  Epist.  ad  Polyc.,  in,  2  :   «  He  that  was  immortal  and  invisible, 
became  visible  for  our  sake*;  he  was  incorruptible  and  impassible,  and  he  be- 
came passible  in  every  way  because  of  us.  » 

2.  Epist.  ad  Rom.,  TI,  1   :  «  I  seek  him  that  died  for  us  (T'OV  uirip  TKXWV 
4ito6av(5vTa) ;  I  want  him  that  arose  for  us.  » 

3.  BARN.,  xiv,  3-4. 

4.  BARN.,  xvi,  1-2. 

5.  BARN.,  v,  11. 

8.  ZACH.,  xiii,  7.  —  BARH.,  Epist.,  v,  12. 
7.  Ibid.,  xvi,  7. 


316  GOD. 

but  also  from  the  fact  that  the  faithful  are,  as  it  were, 
washed  in  this  blood.  This  takes  place  when  the  faithful 
are  united  to  Christ  in  Baptism,  which  at  once  effects  the 
remission  of  sins  and  imparts  the  gift  of  faith  4.  Our  sins 
were  leading  us  on  to  error  and  death;  by  them  we  were 
brought  under  the  empire  of  death  and  error.  By  His  death, 
and  by  uniting  us  to  Himself  in  Baptism,  Christ  effected  our 
release  from  this  captivity 2.  Once  vivified  by  this  spirit 
which  is  poured  out  upon  us  out  of  the  abundance  of  the 
fountains  of  the  Lord,  we  become  the  people  of  Jesus 3. 

The  author  of  the  epistle  to  Diognetus  develops  further 
this  wiew  by  contrasting  the  justice  of  Christ  and  the  injus- 
tice of  men.  Without  going  beyond  the  relation  of  the 
Son  of  God  to  our  salvation,  he  shows  that  it  was  owing  to 
His  eminent  holiness  that  Christ  was  enabled  to  cover  our 
sins  before  the  face  of  God ;  that  is,  that  He  could  compensate 
for  the  outrage  offered  to  God  by  the  sins  of  men 4. 


1.  Ibid.,  \i,  8. 

2.  Ibid.,  xiv,  5-7. 

3.  Ibid.,  i,  3. 

4.  Epist.  ad  Diognet.,  ix  :  «  Having  ceased  in  His  eternal  decrees  to  mani- 
fest Himself  to  Ihe  world,  God,  as  long  as  the  former  times  endured  suffered 
men  to  be  borne  along  by  unruly  impulses,  being  drawn  away  by  the  desire  of 
pleasure  and  various  lusts.    Not  that  He  at  all  delighted  in  their  sins,  He  merely 
tolerated  them;  not  that  He  approved  of  the  injustice  of  those  days,  but  He  was 
preparing  for  the  justice  of  the  present  day.    He  acted  in  this  manner  towards 
us  in  order  that,  once  convinced  that  for  our  own  works  we  were  unworthy  of 
life,  it  should  now  be  vouchsafed  to  us  through  the  kindness  of  God;  and  that 
once  we  had  shown  that  we  were  of  ourselves  incapable  of  entering  the  kingdom 
of  God,  we  might  through  the  power  of  God  be  made  able.    When  our  cup  of 
wickedness  was  filled  to  overflowing,  and  when  it  had  been  clearly  shown  that 
its  reward,  chastisement  and  death  was  impending  over  us,  O  immense  love  of 
God!  He  did  not  turn  from  us  in  hate,  He  did  not  cast  us  from  Him,  He  did 
not  take  revenge.     But,  on  the  contrary,  in  His  great  long-suffering,  He  bore 
with  us;  nay  more,  filled  with  compassion  for  us,  He  Himself  took  on  Him  the 
burden  of  our  sin,  and  delivered  His  own  Son  as  a  ramsom  for  us  (auTo;  tov 
I8iov  u'.ov  aTteocto  Xvtpov  vTrep  ^(AWV),   the  holy   One  for  sinners,   the  innocent 
One  for  the  wicked,  the  just  One  for  the  unjust,  the  incorruptible  One  for  the 
corruptible,  the  immortal  One  for  them  that  are  mortal.    What  else  was  there 
to  cover  our  iniquities,  save  His  righteousness  (T-  Y«P  *M«  T«?  auapTto;  f,[iwv 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  317 

This  brief  sketch  demonstrates  how  false  it  is  to  say  that 
the  Apostolic  Fathers  are  neither  interesting1  nor  original. 
It  would  be  more  exact  to  say  that  there  are,  here  and  there, 
certain  gaps  :  to  show,  for  instance,  that  the  author  of  the 
epistle  to  Diognetus  does  not  insist  sufficiently  upon  the  effi- 
cacy of  the  Savior's  death.  But,  as  Riviere  remarks2,  he 
was  not  unmindful  of  Christ's  death,  but  at  the  same  time, 
he  does  not  expressly  mention  it. 

The  deficiency  found  in  in  the  epistle  to  Diognetus  is 
largely  made  up  for  in  Barnabas,  who  insists  less  upon  the 
eminent  sanctity  of  Jesus,  but  says  in  no  mistakable 
terms  that  it  is  through  His  death  that  Jesus  has  redee- 
med us. 

It  would  be  easier  to  understand  how  rationalistic  critics 
could  urge  the  objection  that  the  apologist  Fathers  are 
somewhat  silent  on  the  dogma  of  the  Redemption.  But  it 
would  be  easy  to  show  that  this  hardly  found  a  place  in 
their  teaching.  What  they  were  most  sollicitous  about  was 
the  establishment  of  the  fact  that  the  Christian  religion  admit- 
ted none  of  the  infamies  imputed  to  it,  and  that  Christianity 
contained  the  truths  vainly  sought  by  pagan  philosophers. 
St.  Justin,  however,  is  an  exception.  He  shows  that  Christ, 
realizing  in  Himself  the  prophecies  and  figures  of  the  Old 
Testament,  offers  Himself  as  a  sacrifice  for  all  sinners  that 
are  willing  to  do  penance3.  His  death  took  on  the  character 


r;o-jvr,9r]  xaXii4'ai  ^  £*eivov  Stxatoirvvr))  Who  could  have  justified  us,  wicked  and  sinful 
as  we  were,  save  only  the  Son  of  God?...  O  sweet  exchange!  (6  trj;  Y^uxeta? 
av:a».aY/;?),  o  sublime  providcno;!  O  benefits  surpassing  all  expectation!  To 
think  of  the  unrighteousness  of  a  vast  multitude  disappearing  in  the  righteous- 
ness of  a  single  one,  and  the  righteousness  of  that  one  justifying  this  wast  multi- 
tude of  sinners.  Thus,  God  in  former  times,  showed  how  powerless  we  were  to 
attain  .-alvalion  by  our  own  unaided  efforts ;  and  in  the  latter  times  lie  has  given 
us  a  Savior,  able  to  save  those  who  were  unable  to  save  themselves.  On  either 
hand  God  compels  our  confidence  in  His  love.  » 

1.  GR^TILIAT,  Essai  de  Thtologie  syste'matique,  vol.  IV,  p.  370. 

2.  HIVIKBE,  op.  ci/.,  p.  32. 

3.  Dial.,  XL. 


318  GOD. 

of  a  penalty  for  sins.  It  is  the  sins  of  the  people,  he  says, 
that  led  to  Christ's  death.  God  willed  (hat  Christ  should 
take  upon  Himself  this  curse  of  all,  and  Christ  was  subject 
to  the  divine  will1. 

The  Greek  Fathers  from  the  End  of  the  Second  Century 
to  the  Middle  of  the  fifth  Century.  —  Some  Protestant  histo- 
rians2, make  the  unqualified  statement  that  the  Greek 
Fathers  attribute  the  salvation  of  men,  not  to  the  bloody  death 
of  Christ,  but  to  the  Incarnation  of  the  Word.  They  call 
this  view  the  theory  of  phy-ical  or  mystical  Redemption,  in 
opposition  to  the  theory  of  the  Latin  Fathers,  which  they  call 
the  theory  of  bloody  or  realistic  Redemption.  The  truth  is 
that  some  of  the  Greek  Fathers,  while  they  did  not  overlook 
the  various  facts  of  our  Lord's  life  and  especially  His  death, 
and  while  they  connected  the  salvation  of  men  with  the 
bloody  expiation  on  Calvary,  saw  above  all  the  acts  of  the 
Savior's  life  the  great  mystery  of  the  Incarnation.  In  their 
eyes,  this  is  the  central  fact.  From  it  all  others  radiate,  as 
to  it  they  owe  all  the  merit  they  possess.  Looking  at  the 
Incarnation  in  this  light,  they  do  not  hesitate  to  ascribe  our 
salvation  to  it.  To  one  who  understands  it  rightly,  such  a 
conception  is  unobjectionab!e.  The  work  of  the  Redemption 
does,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  embrace  the  whole  life  of  Christ  on 
earth,  with  its  termination  on  Calvary.  It  must  needs  be 
accomplished  by  the  Incarnate  Word,  and  must  end  in  the 
death  on  the  cross.  In  explaining  the  Redemption,  we 
may  insist  more  upon  its  relation  to  its  origin  or  upon  its 
relation  to  its  end.  The  important  point  is  to  exclude 
neither. 

St.  Irenaeus,  at  the  close  of  the  second  century,  insisted 
rather  upon  the  first  of  these  views.     God  had  created  Adam 


1.  Dial.,  XCV. 

2.  Cf.  RITSCHL,  Die  Lehre  von  der  Rechtfertigung  und  Verso  hnung,  vol. 
I,  p.  4.  — A  SABATIER,  La  doctrine  de  I'expiation,  pp.  45-46. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  319 

after  His  own  image  and  likeness,  by  the  communication  of 
His  own  Spirit !. 

From  this  there  arose  two  privileges  :  the  privilege  of 
incorruptibility,  and  that  of  immortality.  By  an  act  of  diso- 
bedience Adam  offended  God,  and  God  withdrew  His  image 
and  likeness,  and  with  it  the  twofold  gift  of  incorruptibility 
and  immortality.  Thus  Adam  became  corrupt  and  mortal. 
But,  as  all  of  Adam's  descendants  had  sinned  in  him,  all 
likewise  lost  the  image  and  likeness  of  God,  together  with 
the  advantages  that  went  with  them.  But  God  in  His  good- 
ness, did  not  wish  such  a  state  of  things  to  continue.  So  He 
gave  us  a  Savior,  through  wThom  we  might  regain  what  we 
had  lost  through  Adam ;  namely,  existence  according  to  the 
image  and  likeness  of  God2. 

Hence,  the  Word  of  God  became  man  in  order  that  man 
thus  reunited  to  the  Word  of  God  might  recover,  the 
image  and  ilikeness  of  God;  the  Son  of  God  became  the  Son 
of  man  that  man  might  receive  adoption  and  become  a  son 
of  God ;  the  incorruptible  and  the  immortal  united  Himself 
to  what  was  corruptible  and  mortal,  that  He  might  render  it 
incorruptible  and  immortal;  in  a  word,  Jesus  Christ  became 
what  we  are,  in  order  that  we  might  become  what  He 


1.  Haer.  1.  V,  ch.  vi,  I  :«  A  perfect  man  consists  of  a  mixture  and  union  of 
a  soul,  which  bears  the  Spirit  of  the  Father,  and  a  body,  which  was  moulded  after 
the  image  of  God.  If  the  soul  were  lacking,  man  would  be  simply  an  animal, 
carnal,  imperfect  :  he  would  bear  in  his  flesh  the  image  of  God,  but  he  would  not 
possess  the  likeness  through  the  Spirit.  » 

•>..  Haer.,  1.  Ill,  ch.  xvin,  1-2  :  «  When  He  (the  Son  of  God)  became  Incarnate 
and  was  made  man,  He  embraced  in  His  nature  the  whole  of  mankind  and  gave  us, 
—  thus  comprehended  in  himself  —  salvation  ;  so  that  what  we  had  lost  through 
Adam  —  existence  according  to  the  image  and  likeness  of  God  —  we  might  regain 
in  Christ  Jesus  (longam  hominum  expositionem  in  seipso  recapitulavit,  in 
compendia  nobis  salutem  praeslans,  ut  quod  perdiderarmts  in  Adam,  id  est 
xecundum  imaginem  et  siinililudmem  exse  Dei,  hoc  in  Christo  Jesu  recipe- 
remux).  For  it  was  impossible  for  man,  once  vanquished  and  impoverished,  as  a 
result  of  His  disobedience  (elisux  per  inobedientiam),  again  to  recover  his  lost 
perfection  and  the  prize  of  victory.  • 


320  GOD. 

is.  This  is  the  antidote  of  life,  communicated  to  humanity 
by  the  Incarnation  of  the  Word1. 

From  what  precedes,  we  might  be  led  to  suppose  that, 
according  to  St.  Irenaeus,  humanity  was  saved  by  the  mere 
fact  of  the  Word  taking  on  Him  our  nature.  Such,  however, 
was  not  the  belief  that  the  holy  bishop  entertained.  He 
says  elsewhere  that  the  Incarnation  merely  gave  us  a  Savior, 
and  that  this  Savior  was  then  to  fulfil  the  work  of  our  salva- 
tion. Adam  offended  God  by  his  disobedience  :  in  him  all 
men  have  sinned.  The  Savior  summing  up  in  Himself  all 
mankind,  is  to  be  obedient  even  unto  death  upon  the  cross, 
and  in  this  way  he  will  repair  the  injury  done  to  the  Father2. 
In  this  sense,  then,  it  is  true  to  say  that  St.  Irenaeus  ascribes 
the  salvation  of  men  to  the  Incarnation;  bul  for  him,  the 
Incarnation  perseveres  throughout  a  life  of  obedience  even 
unto  the  death  of  the  cross. 

The  doctrine  of  St.  Hippolytus  resembles  very  closely 
that  of  St.  Irenaeus.  Like  Irenaeus,  Hippolytus  celebrates 
the  saving  virtue  of  the  Incarnation  of  the  Word3;  but  like 
him,  also,  he  holds  that  it  was  through  death  on  the  cross 
that  Christ  redeemed  us4. 

Origen,  however,  looked  at  the  work  of  Redemption 
more  especially  with  a  view  to  its  end.  The  Incarnation,  he 


1.  Haer.,  1.  Ill,  ch.  xix,  1. 

2.  Haer.  1.  V,  ch.  xxi,  2  :  «  Adam  had  infringed  God's  precept;  this  infrin- 
gement was  repaired  by  Jesus  Christ,  who  obeyed  all  the  precepts  of  the  law 
and  all  his  Father's  commands  ».    Ch.  xvi,  3  -.  «  In  the  first  Adam,  we  offended 
God  by  violating  his  precept;  in  the  second  Adam,  we  have  been  reconciled,  by 
becoming  obedient  even  to  the  death  of  the  cross  »;  1.  II,  ch.  xx,  3  :  «  By  his 
passion,  he  (Christ)  destroyed  death,  and  dissipated  error,  corruption,  and  igno- 
rance; he  manifested  the  truth  and  gave  incorruptibility  ». 

3.  DC  Christo  et  Antichristo,  3-4,  p.  6-7,  ACHELIS  edit.  :  He  (the  "Word) 

wishes  to  make  us  all  sons  of  God The  Word  of  God,  in  fact,  who  was 

without  flesh  took  a  holy  flesh  in  the  womb  of  a  holy  virgin,  in  order  to  unite 
our  mortal  body  to  His  power  (oirw;  ffUYxepaaa;  TO  Ovr/rov  rijAwv  crtojxa  TYJ  eayrov 
8vvd|ie.),  to  combine  the  corruptible  with  incorruptible,  the  weak  with  the  strong, 
and  thus  to  save  man,  who  was  lost.  » 

4.  Ibid.,  16,  p.  19  :  «  By  His  death,  He  conquered  death  ». 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  321 

teaches,  merely  gives  us  a  Savior.  That  Savior  lives  among 
men  and  works  out  their  salvation  by  the  shedding  of  His 
blood'.  Sin  demands  expiation,  and  expiation  requires  a 
victim2.  But  the  legal  victims  are  but  provisionary  and 
imperfect;  Jesus  Christ  alone  can  blot  out  the  sins  of  the 
world3. 

Origen  did  not  enjoy  sufficient  prestige  to  bring  men  to 
his  position.  After  his  time,  St.  Athanasius  chose  rather  the 
view  of  St.  Irenaeus.  God,  says  Athanasius,  in  his  De  Incar- 
natione  Verbi,  created  man  and  imprinted  upon  him  his 
likeness,  the  shadow,  as  it  were,  of  the  divine  Word4.  Man 
sinned,  and  thereby  lost  this  likeness;  and  as  a  result  was 
subject  to  corruption  and  death5.  Man  remained  in  this 
condition  until  God  could  no  longer  bear  to  see  so  debased 
a  creature  that  had  once  participated  in  the  likeness  of  the 
divine  Word.  Hence  the  divine  plan  of  salvation. 

Since  it  was  impossible  that  a  creature  save  creatures6, 
the  Word  of  God  had  to  take  a  body;  and  in  this  way  restore 
to  humanity  what  it  had  lost,  that  is,  the  divine  likeness, 


1.  In  Rom.,  1.  Ill,  8;  P.  G.,  XIV,  946  :  «  But  what  is  still  more  sublime  is 
that.    He  is  our  propitiation  by  His  blood  ;  that  is,  by  offering  His  body,  He  has 
rendered  God  propitious  to  us...    For  God  is  just,  and  as  such  He  cannot  jus- 
tify the  unjust ;  that  is  why  He  gives  us  a  propitiator;  that  by  faith  in  Him  those 
might  be  justified  who  could  not  be  justified  by  their  own  works  ».    And  again, 
Origen  comes  back  to  this  thought  and  develops  it  in  magnificent  terms,  in  which 
he  points  out  that  this  doctrine  is  the  doctrine  of  St.  John,  as  well  as  of  St.  Paul 
vol.  950) :  «  Jesus  Christ  is  both  priest  and  victim  :  priest,  as  we  learn  from  the 
Psalms  and  from  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews ;  victim,  as  St.  John  attests  when  He 
says  :  «  Behold  the  lamb  of  God  that  takelh  away  the  sins  of  the  world  »  (I,  29). 
In  as  much  as  He  is  a  victim  He  is  our  propitiation,  in  this  sense,  that  he  secures 
the  remission  of  our  sins  by  the  shedding  of  His  blood...    For,  it' He  did  not  remit 
•  in.  this  propitiation  would  not  be  real  ». 

2.  Ibid.,  1.  IV,  12. 

3.  In  Num.,  horn.  XXIV,  1  ;  P.  G.,  XII,  755-759. 

4.  Oratiode  Incarnatione  Verbi,  3;  P.  G.,  XXV,  101. 

5.  Or.  de  Inc.  Verbi,  5. 

6.  Epist.  adAdelph.,  8;  P.  G.,  XXVI,  1081,  1083  :  KTtojia  8k  uwb  xTiajxaroc 
oux  av  Ttote  (TwOij,  waTUpoOae  uno  xiitrjiaTo;  ixit'aOrjoav  Taxu<r[xaTa  tt  j*.^  XTUJTJK  ?,v 
6  Aoyo?. 

T.  I.  21 


322  GOD. 

together  with  incorruptibility  and  immortality1.  Would  it 
not  seem,  then,  that  Ritschl  is  right  when  he  calls2  Atha- 
nasius  the  doctor  of  the  physical  Redemption?  Undoubtedly 
so,  if  we  confine  our  attention  to  but  one  side  of  the  simile 
given  by  the  illustrious  Alexandrine.  But  there  is  another 
side,  and  Ritschl  is  inexcusable  for  not  having  seen  this  side. 
It  was  impossible  for  a  creature  to  save  creatures,  hence  the 
Word  of  God  had  to  become  man,  that  He  might  communicate 
to  mankind  His  own  likeness  and  incorruptibility.  But  we 
must  not  overlook  the  fact  that  man,  as  a  result  of  his  sin, 
was  condemned  to  death3;  and  divine  veracity  demanded  that 
the  sentence  of  death  be  carried  out.  Hence,  God  willed  that 
the  Word  take  flesh  of  our  race  and  die  in  our  stead,  that 
death  might  be  destroyed4. 

From  the  second  portion  of  the  doctrine  of  St.    Atha- 


1.  Oral  de  Inc.  Vcrbl,  44  :  «  It  was  altogether  fitting  that  the  divine  Word 
lake  upon  Himself  a  body  in  order  to  restore  everlasting  life  to  our  own  bodies... 
Straw  is  by  nature  very  inflammable  :  keep  away  the  fire  from  it,  and  it  will  not 
be  burnt  :  but  straw  it  remains,  and  as  such  it  fears  fire  which  is  ever  able 
to  consume  it.    But  surround  it  with  asbestos  —  a  substance  which  seems  to  be 
fire  proof  —  and  then  it  is  safe  and  no  longer  dreads  fire,  owing  to  this  incom- 
bustible covering.    So  is  it  with  death  and  our  body.    Had  death  been  destroyed 
by  merely  an  act  of  the  divine  will,  the  body  would  have  remained  mortal  and 
corruptible,  for  that  is  its  very  nature.    In  order  to  overcome  this,  the  bodiless 
Word  of  God  put  on  a  body.     So  now  the  body  no  longer  fears  death,  for  it  is 
surrounded  by  the  sheath  of  life  ». 

2.  RITSCHL,  op.  cit.,  vol.  I,  pp.  10-11. 

3.  De  Inc.  Verbi,  4. 

4.  Ibid.,  9  :  «  The  Word  took  a  body  in  order  to  die  for  all...     He  offered 
His  body  to  death  as  a  host  and  a  spotless  victim.    He  paid  the  debt  due  to  death, 
and  God's  rights  were  secured.    But  at  the  same  time,  he  restored  to  men  —  like 

to  whom  Hishuman  nature  had  made  Him  —  the  privileges  of  immortality And 

here  is  a  twofold  wonder :  first,  that  the  death  of  all  of  us  took  place  in  the 
Saviors'  body,  and  that  death  was  destroyed  because  of  the  Word  that  dwelt 

in  the  Savior's  body Corruption  has  no  longer  any  terrors  for  men,  because 

the  Word  was  pleased  to  dwell  amongst  them  in  a  like  body.    If  a  great  king 
were  to  come  to  some  city  and  take  up  his  abode  in  one  of  its  houses  not  only  is 
that  city  honored  but  no  brigand  dares  to  attack  it,  the  mern  presence  o!  the 
king  is  a  safeguard  to  it.    So  is  it  with  the  King  of  Heaven.     Once  he  had  come 
into  the  religion  of  humanity  and  dwelt  in  a  body  like  our  own,  all  attacks  from 
the  enemy  were  at  an  end,  and  corruption  was  destroyed. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  323 

nasius,  we  must,  then,  conclude  that  for  him,  as  for  St.  Ire- 
naeus,  the  Incarnation  was  simply  the  means  of  giving  us  a 
Savior  that  could  save.  Yet  it  was  only  through  His  bloody 
death  on  Calvary  that  He  wrought  our  salvation.  In  uni- 
ting Himself  to  our  flesh  the  Word  imparted  to  it  the  divine 
likeness,  together  with  His  incorruptibility ;  in  a  word,  he  gave 
us  eternal  life,  which  consists  in  the  life  of  grace  for  the  soul, 
and  in  the  privilege  of  a  glorious  resurrection  for  the  body. 
But  this  life  was  communicated  only  after  the  Savior  had, 
by  His  own  death,  suffered  the  penalty  of  death  imposed 
upon  us. 

While  St.  Athanasius,  at  Alexandria,  viewed  the  work  of 
the  Redemption  from  the  position  of  St.  Irenaeus,  Eusebius 
of  Caesareacame  back  to  Origen's  point  of  view,  and  pushed 
this  to  its  logical  extent.  Since  man,  created  to  the  image 
of  the  Word,  had  sinned  and  fallen  into  corruption,  the  Word 
decided  to  intervene  to  save  mankind.  He  became  flesh  and 
dwelt  amongst  men,  devoting  Himself  to  the  restoration  of 
man  by  word  and  example.  Now,  His  mission  as  man  was 
to  save  us  from  our  sins,  by  suffering  and  by  being  accursed 
for  us.  He  offered  Himself,  then,  in  sacrifice  for  the  whole 
world'.  Under  the  old  Law,  when  one  of  the  faithful  wished 
to  wipe  out  his  sins,  he  personified  his  life  in  some  set  vic- 
tim, which  was  immolated  in  his  stead,  and  was  symbolical 
of  the  immolation  of  his  own  heart;  and  God  accepted  this 
symbolical  immolation  by  substitution2.  But  this  was  only 


1  Demonstr.  Evangel.,  1.  IV,  ch.  xii;  P.  G.,  XXII,  284  :  «  There  is  not  one 
cause  (to  explain  the  coming  of  the  Incarnate  Word),  but  there  are  several  :  the 
first  is,  th.it  the  reign  of  the  Logon  be  established  over  the  living  ami  the  dead  : 
the  second,  that  the  Logos  might  cleanse  our  sin  by  allowing  Himself  to  be 
struck  and  by  becoming  a  curse  for  us;  the  third,  that  He  might  offer  Himself 
in  sacrifice  for  the  whole  world  (oiro>;  TOU;  ^{letepa;  dnou-d^otto  <xu.apTta:,  Gnep  r.jiwv 
TpwOei;  xai  Y£v6(i£vo<;  Circep  r^tLv  xorcdpa...,  w-  avlepetov  6eou  xal  ^eya).^  Owita  Cmep 
•row  dwu-navTo;  -/.d<j(iou  nj.oirotx(>£'-T)  9e<i>);  tne  fourth,  that  He  might  overthrow  the 
empire  of  Satan;  and  the  tilth,  that  He  might  secure  for  His  disciples  everlasting 
life  with  God  ». 

•1.  Ibid.,  1.  I,  ch.  i. 


324  GOD. 

a  figure  of  the  sacrifice  that  Christ  was  to  offer.  Having 
become  the  victim  for  all  the  sins  of  men,  he  was  immolated 
in  their  stead,  and  suffered  the  penalty  due  to  their  sins1. 

The  doctrine  of  Eusebius  of  Caesarea  was  held  also  by 
Cyril  of  Jerusalem2,  by  St.  Basil3,  by  St.  Gregory  Nazianzene4, 
and  by  St.  John  Chrysostom5. 

Finally,  in  his  defence  of  the  dogma  of  the  hypostatic 
union  against  the  Nestorians,  St.  Cyril  of  Alexandria  at  the 
same  time  developed  the  dogma  of  the  Redemption.  He 
realized  the  relation  that  existed  between  these  two  dogmas, 
and  hence  was  led  to  combine  the  two  views,  taken  by  his 
predecessors. 

St.  Cyril's  first  object  was  to  refute  the  arguments  of  his 


1.  Ibid.,  1.  I,  ch.  x  ;  1.  X,  ch.  i  :  «  He  (the  Incarnate  Word)  suffered  chastise- 
ment for  us;  it  was  not  He  that  merited  the  sufferings  He  underwent,  but  it 
was  we,  for  our  multitude  of  faults;  so  He  became  the  cause  for  the  remission 
of  our  sins,  by  undergoing  death  for  us,  by  taking  upon  Himself  the  sufferings, 
the  insults,  and  the  outrages  due  us,  and  by  drawing  upon  Himself  the  maledic- 
tion that  was  our  just  desert,  even  to  being  accursed  for  us  .....  In  order  to 
wash  our  sins  He  was  fastened  to  the  cross,  where  we  belonged  ;  for  He  became 
the  substitute  of  our  souls  and  the  ransom  for  us  (avtt^uxov  y]|xt5v  xat  avu).uTpov 


2.  Cf.  Catecti.,  Ill,  12;  P.  G.,  XXXIII,  444  :  «  He  vho  died  for  us  was  not 
a  little  thing,  He  was  not  a  victim  devoid  of  reason,  nor  an  ordinary  man,  nor 
even  an  angel  :  but  God  made  man.    The  iniquity  of  sinners  was  not  so  great  as 
the  justice  of  Him  who  died  for  us;  we  have  not  committed  sin  equal  in  magni- 
tude to  the  justice  of  Him  who  for  us  delivered  up  His  soul  ». 

3.  In  Psalm.  XLV1II,  3-4;  P.  G.,  XXIX,  437  :  «  Moses  did  not  deliver  his 
people  from  sin;  furthermore,  he  could  not  even  offer  an  expiation  to  God  for 
himself,  when  he  was  in  sin.    We  are  not  to  look  to  man  for  our  expiation  ;  we 
are  to  look  to  one  that  transcends  our  nature,  to  Jesus  Christ,  the  God  man, 
who  alone  can  offer  to  God  sufficient  expiation  for  us  all  ». 

4.  Or.,  XLV,  28;  P.  G.,  XXXVI,  661  :  «  We  need  the  Incarnation  and  the 
death  of  a  God,  in  order  to  live;  we  died  with  him,  that  we  might  be  purifled; 
we  rose  together  with  Him,  because  we  also  died  with  Him;  we  have  been  glori- 
fied together  with  Him,  because  we  rose  again  together  with  Him  ». 

5.  In  Gal.,  II,  8  ;  P.  G.,  LXI,  646  :  «  We  all  stood  under  divine  condemnation  : 
we  deserved  the  direst  punishment.    We  were  accused  by  the  law,  and  God 
had  condemned  us.    We  were  to  die  as  in  the  days  of  the  deluge;  and  virtually 
we  were  already  dead.    Jesus  Christ  reclaimed  us  from  death  by  delivering  Him 
self  up  to  death.    The  presence  of  Christ  allayed  the  wrath  of  God  ». 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  325 

adversaries,  who  saw  in  Christ  but  a  moral  union  of  the 
humanity  with  the  divinity.  He  speaks  of  the  fact  —  evident 
to  all  who  admit  the  authenticity  of  the  Sacred  Books  —  that 
Christ  saved  men  by  His  death  on  the  cross.  He  saved  men ; 
that  is,  He  destroyed  sin,  and  by  that  very  fact,  the  death  that 
sin  entailed1.  He  saved  men  by  a  bloody  death,  for  such 
was  the  penalty  for  the  sins  of  men2.  If  Christ  really  saved 
men  by  His  death,  it  cannot  be  that  He  was  merely  man; 
for  the  death  of  any  more  man  would  have  been  of  no  avail3. 
The  Savior  of  the  world  could  have  been  none  other  but  the 
Incarnate  Word4.  St.  Cyril  sums  up  his  whole  argument  in 
the  phrase  :  «  The  Savior's  object  was  to  die  for  us,  and  to  do 
this  in  order  to  destroy  death ;  and  since  the  destruction  of 
death  was  beyond  the  powers  of  our  nature,  the  Word  of 
God  had  to  become  Incarnate5  ». 

The  Latin  Fathers  from  the  Beginning  of  the  third 


1.  In  Joan.,  II,  1,  29;  P.  G.,  LXX1II,  192  :  «  For  one  only  Lamb  died  for 
all  to  save  the  whole  flock;  one  died  for  all  to  regain  them  all...    So,  while  we 
were  guilty  of  many  sins,  and  consequently  under  sentence  of  death  and  corruption, 
the  Father  gave  us  His  Son  as  a  ransom,  one  for  all,  because  all  things  are  in 
Him  and  He  is  better  than  all.    So  He  died  for  us  all,  in  order  that  we  might 
all  have  life  in  Him...    For  we  were  in  Him  who  died  for  us  and  for  us  rose 
again.    And  once  sin  was  destroyed,  how  can  it  be  otherwise  than  that  death 
which  is  ils  result  is  destroyed?    The  roots  being  dead,  how  can  the  branches 
survive?    Sin  being  destroyed,  how  could  we  henceforth  die  »? 

2.  In  Isaiam,  LIII;  P.  G.,  LXX,  1174  :  «  It  was  not  for  His  own  sins,  but 
for  ours  that  he  was  stricken.    We  had  disobejed  God  ;  and  it  was  we  who  should 
have  been  chastised.    But  the  penalty  that  was  due  to  sinners,  fell  upon  Him. 
God  struck  Him  because  of  our  sins,  in  order  to  absolve  us  from  the  penalty. 

3.  De  recta  fide  ad  reginas,  7;  P.  G.,  LXXVI.  1208  :  «  If  Christ  had  been 
but  an  ordinary  man,  how  could  His  death  have  saved  the  world,  since  the 
death  of  so  many  saintly  men,  like  Abraham,  Jacob  and  Moses,  was  of  no  avail? 
But  the  death  of  Christ  did  save  us.    If,  then,  the  death  of  one  sufficed  for  all, 
this  one  must  have  been  superior  to  all  others  by  His  divine  nature.  » 

4.  De  reel.  fid.  ad  rey.,  1  :  *  How  could  one  die  for  all,  and  be  the  equi- 
valent of  all,  if  his  sufferings  were  hut  the  sufferings  of  a  man  ?    But  if  it  was  God 
who  suffered  in  human  nature,  then  we  can  say,  and  say  rightly,  that  the  death 
of  this  one  was  equivalent  to  the  life  of  all;  for  it  was  not  the  death  of  a  man 
like  ourselves,  but  of  a  God  incarnate.  » 

5.  Ibid.,  31. 


316  GOD. 

Century  to  the  Middle  of  the  Fifth  Century.  -  -  Protestant 
historians  are  pleased  to  pit  the  theology  of  the  Redemption, 
as  found  in  the  Latin  Fathers,  against  that  of  the  Greeks,  with 
the  evident  intention  of  accentuating  the  difference  between 
them.  Thus,  Harnack1  says  that  whereas  the  Greeks  taught 
rather  a  mystical  Redemption,  the  Latins  stopped  at  the 
realistic.  With  the  Latins,  the  Incarnation  is  always  taken 
for  granted,  and  Christ's  death  is  put  foremost  as  the  punctum 
saliens.  They  weigh  the  value  of  His  death ;  and  they  show 
how  it  makes  up  for  the  injury  done  to  God  by  sin.  The 
theologians  of  the  Middle  Ages  reduced  these  points  to  a 
synthesis  and  easily  discerned  in  the  concept  of  the  Redemp- 
tion three  essential  features  :  the  vicarious  substitution  of 
Christ;  the  penal  satisfaction  offered  by  Christ  to  God  the 
Father ;  and  the  delivrance  of  men  from  sin  and  their  resto- 
ration to  the  privileges  of  their  primal  state. 

We  have  already  seen  what  is  to  be  thought  of  this  opinion 
regarding  the  doctrine  of  the  Greek  Fathers.  If  some  of  them 
have  placed  the  mystical  aspect  of  the  Redemption  in  bolder 
relief,  this  was  in  no  way  detrimental  to  its  realistic  aspect. 
And  gradually  the  realistic  aspect  came  more  and  more  to  the 
front. 

Now,  the  Latin  Fathers  maintained  a  doctrine  fundamen- 
tally like  that  of  the  Greeks.  Though  they  always  attached 
a  lesser  importance  to  the  mystical  aspect  of  the  Redemption, 
they  never  failed  to  point  out  this. aspect.  In  saying  that  it 
was,  above  all,  by  the  death  of  the  Cross  that  Christ  saved 
mankind,  they  agree  perfectly  with  Origen,  Eusebius  of 
Caesarea,  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  St.  Basil,  St.  Gregory  Nazianzene, 
St.  John  Chrysostom,  and  St.  Cyril  of  Alexandria. 

Tertullian,  to  whom  Harnack  ascribes  preeminently  the 
realistic  theology  of  the  Redemption2,  does  indeed  say  that  it 
was  by  dying  on  the  cross  that  Christ  saved  us;  but  he  does  so 


1.  History  of  dogma,  vol.  Ill,  pp.  306-314. 

2.  History  of  dogma,  vol.  V,  p.  18-19,  note  J. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  327 

in  concise  terms,  quite  becoming-  the  traditional  doctrine  he 
hands  down1.  Our  sins,  he  says,  were  the  cause  of  the  death 
of  Christ2.  Moreover,  this  death  is  a  sacrifice3.  By  this 
means  did  Christ  redeem  us  from  our  sins4,  and  deliver  us 
from  death5.  Now,  if  the  sacrifice  offered  by  Christ  was  so 
efficacious,  it  must  be  that  He  was  the  Son  of  God6.  Here 
surely  the  mystical  and  the  realistic  concepts  meet. 

The  doctrine  propounded  by  St.  Cyprian  is  somewhat 
similar  to  this.  \\'e  were  bought  and  vivified  by  the  blood 
of  Christ7,  the  Son  of  God8;  and  once  delivered  from  sin 
and  restored  to  the  possession  of  eternal  life,  we  became  the 
adopted  sons  of  God9. 

St.  Ambrose  treats  of  the  traditional  doctrine  of  the 
Redemption  in  language  at  once  strong  and  elegant.  It  is  by 
the  sum  total  of  the  works  of  His  earthly  life  that  Christ 
redeemed  us;  but  these  works  had  to  be  crowned  by  the 

1.  Terlullian   was  the  first  to  make  use  of  the  term  satisfaction.    But  he 
used  the  word  only  to  designate  the  reparation  of  personal  sins  by  the  perfor- 
mance of  painful  works,  such  as  fasting,  almsgiving,  and  other  penitential  works. 
Cf.  De  patientia,  XIH.  —  De  oratione,  23.  —  De  paenitentia,  5,  7,  8.  — De 
pudicitia,  13.  —  De  cultu  feminarum,  i,  1 .  —  Dejejunio,  3.     Cf.  J.  RIVIERE,  op. 
cit.,  pp.  251  and  255. 

2.  De  cultu  feminarum,  1. 1 ;  Propter  tuum  (Eva)  meritum,  idest  mortem, 
etiam  Filius  Dei  mori  debuit. 

3.  Adv.  Jud.,  13  :  Hunc  oportebnt  pro  omnibus  gentibus  fieri  sacrificium. 

4.  De  fuga  in  persecut.,  12  :  Ut  aulem  redimas  hominem  tuum  nummis, 
quern  sanguine  suo  redemit  Chrislus,  quam  indignum  Deo  et  dispositione 
ejus,  qui  Filio  suo  non  pepercit  pro  te,  ut  fieret  maledictum  pro  nobis,  quia 
malediclus  qui  pependit  in  ligno;  qui  tamquam  ovis  ad  victimam  ductus 
est...  tt  inter  iniquos  deputatus  est,  et  traditus  est  in  mortem,  mortem  aulem 
crucis  :  totum  hoc  ut  nos  a  peccatis  lucraretur. 

5.  De  pudicitia,  22  :  Quis  alienam  mortem  sna  soMt  nisi  solus  Dei 
Fitius  ?    Ad  hoc  enim  venerat  ut  ipse,  a  delicto  purus  et  omnino  sanctus, 
pro  peccatoribus  obirel, 

G.  Ibid. 

7.  Ue  op.  et  eleem.,  26 ;  vol.  1,  p.  394 :  Offere  nos  Patri  cui  non  sua  sane- 
fificaiione  restiluit,  aeternitatem  nobis  immortalitatemque  largiri,  ad  quam 
nos  sanguinis  xui  vivificatione  reparavit. 

8.  Epist.  LVIII,  6;  vol.  II,  p.  662  :  Filiux  Dei  passus  est,  ut  nosfilios  Dei 
facer  et. 

9.  Ibid. 


338  GOD. 

death  on  the  cross1.  This  death  is  the  sacrifice  prefigured 
under  the  Old  Law2;  it  is  the  penalty  for  the  sins  of  men  , 
suffered  by  Christ  in  their  place4.  If  Christ  redeemed  us  from 
death,  it  is  only  because  he  is  the  Son  of  Godr'.  Neither  man 
nor  angel  could  have  saved  the  world6.  Christ  accepted 
death  freely7,  fulfilling  to  the  end  the  will  of  the  Father, 
continues  the  Ambrosias ter ;  and,  adds  its  author,  the  sacri- 
fice consisted  above  all,  in  the  mind  of  His  heavenly  Father,  in 
His  obedience  even  unto  the  death  of  the  cross8. 

St.  Augustine's  teachings  embody  the  views  of  the  Latin 
Fathers  that  preceded  him,  and  he  formulates  the  principles 
which  St.  Thomas  will  later  use  in  his  work  on  the  dogma  of 
the  Redemption. 

He  held  that  the  Incarnation  depended  upon  the  fall  of 
man.  Had  man  not  sinned,  the  Son  of  God  would  note  have 
become  Incarnate9.  But  this  does  not  mean  that  the  Incar- 


1.  De  Spiritu  Sancto,  1.  Ill,  cb.  xvii,  126;  P.  L.,  XVI,  806  :  Quamvis  enim 
simili  modo  assumptionis  el  passionis  sint  admiranda  mysteria,  plenitudo 
tamen  fidei  in  Sacramento  esl  passionis. 

2.  Ibid.,  1.  I,  4. 

3.  De  Virg.t  XIX,  126;  P.  L.,  XVI,  299-300  :  Contraximus  chirographum 
culpae,  paenam  sanyuinis  debebarmts  :  venit  Dominus  Jesus,   suum  pro 
nobis  obtulit. 

4.  In  Luc.,  x,  56-57;  P.  L.,  XVI,  299-300  :  Pro  me  doluit,  qui pro  senihil 
habuit  ut  doleret...    Doles,  Domine,  non  tua  sed  mea  vulnera  :  non  tuam 
mortem,  sed  nostrum  infirmitatem,  Infirmatus  es,  sed  propterpeccatanostra. 

5.  In  Luc.,  vi,  109 ;  P.  L.,  XV,  1698  :  Quoniam  nullus  hominum  tantus  esse 
potuit,  qui  totius  peccata  toller  et  mundi~.,  idcirco  non  unus  e  plebe,  non 
unus  e  numero,  sed  Filius  Dei  a  Deo  Patre  electus  est,  qui,  cum  supra 
omnes  esset,  pro  omnibus  se  posset  offere  :  quern  mori  oportuit,  ut,  cum 
esset  fortior  morte,  alios  liberaret. 

6.  Ibid.,  IT,  9. 

7.  De  excessu  Sat.,  u,  46;  P.  L.,  XVI,  1327:  Potuit  Christus  non  mori  si 
voluisset :  sed  neque  refugiendum  mortem  putavit,  neque  melius  nos  quam 
moriendo  servasset. 

8.  AMBROSUST.,  Rom.,  T,  6-10;  P.  L.,  XVII,  90-91  :  Christus  Deose  dicitur 
obtulisse,  dum  occidi  se  passus  est,  in  Dei  Patris  sui  voluntate  perdurans... 
Irnuierilus  qui  occiditur  placet  Deo,  non  quia  occiditur  sed  quia  usque  ad  mortem 
justitiam  conservavit. 

9.  Serra.  CLIXIV,  2  ;  P.  L.,  XXXVIII,  940  :  Si  homo  non  perisset,  Filius 
hominis  non  venisset. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  329 

nation  was  absolutely  necessary  for  our  salvation ;  God  might 
have  saved  us  otherwise1.  But,  given  the  plan  of  salvation 
freely  adopted  by  God,  the  Incarnation  became  necessary. 
After  showing  the  r6le  of  the  Incarnation  in  the  work  of 
the  Redemption,  St.  Augustine  says  that  Christ  saved  us  by 
His  death,  the  death  announced  by  the  sacrifices  of  the  Old 
Testament,  and  continued  in  the  Mass2.  This  sacrifice  is 
one  of  expiation3;  it  is  a  sacrifice  that  reconciles  men  with 
God4,  and  delivers  them  from  death5.  But  if  Christ  saved 
us  it  was  by  taking  upon  Himself  the  punishment  due 
to  our  sins6.  St.  Augustine  does  not  overlook  the  moral 
side  of  the  Incarnation  and  the  Redemption.  He  says7  that 
in  this  twofold  mystery  God  manifests  His  love  in  the 


1.  De  agon.  Christ.,  xi,  12;  P.  L.,  297  :  Non  poterat  aliter  sapientia  Dei 
homines  liberare,  nisi  susciperet  hominem?....    Poterat  omnino;  sed,  si  aliter 
faceret,  similiter  vestrae  stultitiae  displiceret. 

2.  Contra  Faustum,  xxi ;  P.  L.,  XLII,  385  :  Hujus  sacrificii  caro  et  san- 
guis,  ante  adventum  Christi,  per  vidimus  promittebatur ;  in  passione  Christi, 
per  ipsam  veritatem  reddebalur;  post  ascensum  Christi  per  sacramentum 
memoriae  celebratur. 

3.  De  Trin.,  I.  iv,  xm,  17;  P.  L.,  XLII,  899  :  Morte  sua  quippe  uno  veris- 
simosacriftcio  pro  nobis  oblato  quidquid  culparum  erat...  purgavit,  abolevit, 
exstinxit. 

4.  fbi'L,  xiv,  19:  Idem  ipse  unus  verusque  mediator,  per  sacrificium 
pads  reconcilians  nos  Deo. 

5.  In  Joan.,  vol.  XII,  10  and  11 ;  P.  L.,  XXXV,  1489-1490  :  Ipsa  morle  libe- 
ravit  nos  a  morle;  morle  occisus  mortem  occidit...    Ergo  mortem  suscepit  ef 
mortem  suspendil  in  cruce  :  et  de  ipsa  morte  liberantur  morlales...    In  morle 
Christi  mors  mortua  esl,  quia  vita  mortua  occidit  mortem,  plcniludo  vitac 
deglutivit  mortem. 

6.  Contra  duas  epist.  Pelag.,  1.  IV,  iv,  6;  P.  L.,  XLIV,  613  :  Pro  nobis 
mortem  hoc  estpeccatipoenam,  sinepeccato  subire  dignatus  est...    Solus  pro 
nobis  tuscepit  sine  malis  meritis  poenam  ul  nos  per  ilium  sine  bonis  meritis 
consequeremur  gratiam.    Quia  sicut  nobis  non  debebatur  aliquid  boni,  ita 
nee  illi  aliquid  malt.    Commendans  ergo  dilectionem  suam  in  eos  quibus 
erat  dalurus  indebilam  vilam,  patipro  eisvoluil  indebilam  mortem. 

7.  De  catech.  rud.,iv,  7-8;  P.  L.  XL,  314-316  :  Qux  major  causa  esl  ad- 
ventus  Domini,  nisi  ut  ostenderet  Deus  dileclionem  suam  in    nobis...   Si 
amare  pigebat  saltern  nunc  redamare  nonpigeat...  Dominus  Jesus  Chrislus, 
Dens  homo,  et  divinx  in  nos  dilectionis  indicium  est  et  humanx  apud  nos 
humiliiatis  exemplum. 


330  GOD. 

highest  degree  and  invites  us  to  love  Him  in  return;  and 
that  He  gives  us  an  example  of  perfect  humility1. 

ARTICLE  III 
Scliolastic  Theology. 

St.  Anselm.  —  In  his  Cur  Dem  homo,  St.  Anselm  proves 
why  God  became  man2.  His  argument  is  so  cogent  that  it 
deserves  to  be  reproduced  quite  in  full. 


1.  Among  the  motives  given  by  the  Fathers  to  explain  the  necessity  of  the 
Redemption,  there  is  one  {hat  has  been  peculiarly  distorted  by  liberal  Protes- 
tants, in  their  attempts  to  cast  ridicule  upon  our  Catholic  doctrine.  It  is  this, 
that  the  Redemption  by  the  blood  of  Jesus-Christ  was  necessary  to  satisfy  the 
rights  of  the  devil.  This  theory  assumes  two  forms  quite  different.  In  the 
former,  God  and  the  devil  appear  as  two  rival  powers.  In  withdrawing  him- 
self from  God  through  sin,  man  has  given  himself  to  the  devil,  who  has,  as  a 
result,  a  right  over  him.  In  order  to  deliver  men  from  the  power  of  Satan, 
God  was  obliged  in  justice  to  pay  the  devil  a  ransom.  This  ransom  was  the 
blood  of  Jesus  Christ,  Cf.  IREN.,  Haer.,  1.  Ill,  ch.  xvm,  7 ;  1.  V.  ch.  n,  —  ORIG. 
In  Ex.,  homil.,  vi,  9;  In  Malth.,  xvi,  8.  —  AMBKOS.,  Epist.,  LXXII,  8-9.  The 
latter  does  not  speak  of  the  enfranchisement  of  man  by  the  paying  of  a  ransom 
to  the  devil.  Bnt  in  that  explanation  the  devil  received  from  God  the  right  to  put 
men  to  death  because  of  their  sins.  This  right  he  carried  out  on  Jesus  Christ, 
who  was  innocent.  In  doing  this  he  exceeded  his  rights;  he  abused  his  power. 
And  God,  in  order  to  punish  him,  deprived  the  devil  of  his  captives.  Cf.  JOH.N 
CHRYSOS.,  In  Joan.,  horn.  LXVIII,  2-3.  —  CYR.  ALEX.,  In  Joan.,  I.  vi.  —  HIIAR., 
In  Matth.,  Ill,  2.  —  AUGUST.,  De  libero  arbitrio,  1.  Ill,  ch.  x,  29-31 ;  De 
Trinitate,  1.  XIII,  ch.  xn,  16-19.  —  LEO  MAGN.,Serm.  LVI,  1 ;  LVIII,  1. 

These  two  theories  are  very  well  explained  in  RIVIERE'S  Doctrine  of  the  At- 
onement, part  5th,  ch.  XXI-XXH.  The  second  view  is  less  surprising  than  the 
first;  for  it  limits  in  a  singular  manner  the  power  of  the  devil  over  men.  Critics 
are  more  successful  in  their  attacks  upon  the  first.  But,  is  it  quite  true 
that  in  supporting  this  view  the  Fathers  intended  to  ascribe  to  the  devil  a 
strict  right  over  sinful  men  ?  This  seems  doubtful.  St.  Irenaeus,  for  example, 
declares  categorically  that  we  were  «  debtors  only  to  God,  whose  precept  we  had 
transgressed  ».  Haer.,  1.  V,  ch.  xvi,  3.  The  Fathers  in  question  merely  wished 
to  say,  in  poetic  or  juridical  form,  that,  on  account  of  our  sin,  we  belonged 
to  the  devil,  in  the  sense  that  God  hat  issued  a  decree  permitting  the  devil  to 
chastise  us  from  the  moment  we  became  sinners.  It  is  only  this  decree  that 
they  have  in  mind,  it  would  seem,  when  they  say  that  God  gave  a  note,  a  hill 
chirographus,  acknowledging  the  rights  of  the  devil  over  humanity.  Christ 
annuled  this  bill,  by  giving  men  the  power  to  avoid  sin  and  escape  the  chastise- 
ment of  the  devil.  And  the  means  to  do  this  is  grace  merited  by  the  sacrifice 
on  Calvary. 
2.  Cf.  this  treatise  in  P.  L.  CLVIII,  361-430. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  331 

Man,  a  rational  and  free  creature,  should  render  obedience 
to  God  by  making  his  own  will  conform  to  that  of  the  Cre- 
ator. By  so  acting1,  as  it  is  his  duty  to  do,  he  recognizes  God 
as  his  sovereign  Master :  he  gives  honor  to  God.  But  if  man 
disobeys  God, by  his  very  disobedience  he  dishonors  and  of- 
fends Him.  This  rebelliousness  is  sin.  If  man  would  obtain 
pardon  for  his  sins,  he  must  first  perform  an  act  of  submis- 
sion which  will  compensate  for  the  sin ;  in  other  words,  he 
must* do  something  that  will  honor  God  to  the  same  degree 
as  the  sin  dishonored  him.  This  is  what  St.  Anselm  calls 
satisfying  :  it  is  satisfaction1. 

It  would  not  be  becoming  for  God  to  forgive  purely  out 
of  mercy,  without  requiring  any  satisfaction.  His  mercy 
could  not  prevail  over  His  dignity;  and  the  least  refusal  to 
do  Him  honor  is  incompatible  with  His  dignity.  Hence, 
either  created  man  will  serve  God  in  innocence,  or  he  will 
have  to  repair  the  dishonor  offered  to  God.  Failing 
to  do  this,  he  will  be  punished.  If  the  sinner  withdraws 
himself  from  the  will  of  the  God  who  commands,  he  must 
fall  under  the  hand  of  the  God  who  punishes2.  Hence,  if 
man  sins,  satisfaction  is  necessary. 

The  fact  is  that  man  has  sinned,  and  satisfaction  has 
become  necessary.  But  men  have  been  unable  to  pay  their 
debt.  And  the  satisfaction  must  be  proportionate  to  the 
sin3.  If  it  were  otherwise  there  would  remain  a  certain  dis- 
order. But  what  had  men  to  give,  which  they  did  not 
already  owe?  Besides,  the  heinousness  of  the  offence  de- 


1.  C.  1,  ch.  i  :  Omnis  voluntax  ralionalis  creaturae  subjecta  debel  esse 
voluntali  Dei...  Hunc  honorem  debitum  qui  Deo  non  reddit  aufert  Deo  quod 
suum  est  et  JJeum  exkonorat,  ct  hoc  est  peccare...  Sic  ergo  debel  omnis  qui 
peccai  honfircm  quern  rapuit  Deo  solvers;  el  haec  est  xatixfaclio. 

2.Cf.  1. 1,  ch.  xv  :Ipsa  namque.  perversitatis  xpontanea  satisfactio  vel  a 
-non  xaslisfacienle  poenx  exactio  in  eailem  univerxiiate  locum  tenet  suum 
et  ordinis  pulchriludinem...  Necesxe  est  ut  omne  peccalum  satisfactio  aut 
poena  xequatur. 

3.  Cf.  I.  I,  ch.  xx  :  Hoc  quoque  non  dubilabis,  ut  pulo,  quia  secun- 
(Itnn  mensuram  peccati  oporlet  satis factionem  este. 


:m  GOD. 

pends  upon  the  dignity  of  the  person  o'JFended;  and  this  per- 
son was  God,  whose  majesty  is  infinite  '. 

The  conclusion  necessarily  follows,  'in  the  hypothesis 
that  sin  was  committed,  God  owed  it  to  Himself  to  exact 
satisfaction.  This  satisfaction  could  be  rendered  only  by  a 
man  sprung  from  the  guilty  race.  But  this  man  must  be 
without  sin  and  not  under  obligation  of  rendering  satisfac- 
tion for  himself.  And  he  must  at  the  same  time  be  God, 
that  the  satisfaction  offered  by  him  might  be  of  infinite 
value. 

In  what  did  this  satisfaction  consist?  Christ  could  not 
render  this  satisfaction  by  acts  of  obedience  alone,  for  these 
He  already  owed  God,  just  as  every  creature  owes  them. 
It  was  only  by  the  performance  of  an  act  that  He  did  not 
owe,  that  He  could  render  proper  satisfaction.  And  such  an 
act  was  His  voluntary  acceptance  of  death  on  the  cross.  Once 
this  was  done,  satisfaction  was  rendered,  and  God  forgave 
men. 

At  the  close  of  his  arguments,  St.  Anselm  lays  down  a 
principle  that  he  was  to  develop  later  on  in  his  Medita- 
tions-. God,  he  says,  had  no  need  of  redeeming  us.  Ade- 
quate satisfaction  by  the  bloody  expiation  of  the  Incarnate 
Word  became  necessary,  only  on  condition  that  God  decreed 
1o  create  man  though  He  foresaw  that  man  would  fall. 
God  might  well  not  have  created  man,  especially  in  view 
of  the  fact  that  man  would  sin  and  that  sin  would  require 
such  a  sacrifice.  Yet  God  willed  to  create  man  ;  and,  fore- 
seeing his  sin,  He  decreed  at  the  same  time  to  send  the  In- 
carnate Word  for  man's  Redemption.  This  was  the  plan 
carried  out.  To  create  man  under  such  conditions,  God 
must  have  loved  us  beyond  anything  we  can  imagine ;  He 
must  have  loved  us  infinitely.  It  is  God's  love,  His  merciful 


1.  Cf.  1.  I,  ch.  ix. 

2.  Medit.  TI,  u;  P.  L.,  CLVIII. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  333 

love,  that  is  responsible  for  the  whole  scheme  of  creation 
and  Redemption. 

Successors  to  St.  Anselm.  —  St.  Anselm's  doctrine, 
admirable  as  it  is  for  the  rigor  of  its  logic,  as  well  as  for  the 
light  it  throws  upon  the  Godhead,  had  yet  about  it  certain 
rigid  features  that  must  be  toned  down  to  make  it  alto- 
gether acceptable.  To  this  task  his  successors  devoted 
themselves. 

St.  Bernard  holds  that,  while  suffering  the  penalty  for 
our  sins,  Christ  taught  us  how  we  should  love  God  and  how 
we  should  detest  sin1.  Hugh  of  St  Victor  admits  that  God 
might  have  saved  us  otherwise  than  he  did 2.  Peter  Lombard 
insists  upon  the  fact  that  Christ's  sacrifice  was  the  penally 
due  for  the  sins  of  men,  and  that  in  suffering  this  penalty 
Christ  freed  us  from  sin3.  Alexander  of  Hales  shows  that  at 
the  same  time  that  Christ  offers  satisfaction  for  our  sins  and 
merits  for  us  a  life  of  grace,  he  excites  in  us,  by  the  example 
of  His  Passion,  love,  faith,  and  compassion,  and  shows  us  the 
necessity  of  imitating  Him4.  St.  Bona venture's  doctrine  on 
the  Redemption  is  found  in  his  Commentary  on  the  sentences. 
By  perfect  obedience  throughout  His  life  and  unto  His  death 
upon  the  cross,  the  Savior  merited  our  reconciliation  with 
God  and  cancelled  the  account  which  was  against  us  and 
dispensed  us  with  the  penalty  for  our  sins5.  This  Redemp- 
tion was  not  absolutely  necessary,  but  only  becoming.  It 
became  necessary  only  under  the  actual  plan  of  Providence, 
which,  through  interfered  with,  must  be  carried  outf>. 


1.  Sermo  de  Passione,  4-7;  P.  L.,  CLXXXIII,  266-267.  St,  Bernard  g.ivc  out 
this  doctrine  against  Abelard  who  taught  that  Christ  had  redeemed  us  solely  I  y 
giving  us  an  example  of  such  a  nature  as  to  excite  in  us  a  love  of  God  and  an 
aversion  to  sin. 

2.  De  sacramentisj,  pars  viu,  c.  HI-IV;  P.  L.,  CLXXVI,  307-309. 

3.  Sent.  1,  m,  dist.  xvm,  3-7  ;  P.  L.,  CXCII,  797-798. 

4.  Sum.  theol.,p&n  III* ,  quaest.  xvm,  membrum  vi,  art.  1-4. 

5.  In  III  Sent.,  dis.  xvm,  art.  1,  quaest.  3;  dis.  xix,  art.  1,  quaest.  l-i. 

6.  Ibid.,  dist.  xx,  art.  1,  quaest.  1-4. 


334  GOD. 

Likewise  the  Passion  was  not  absolutely  necessary.  Even 
the  slightest  suffering1  of  the  God  man  would  have  suf- 
ficed. 

Saint  Thomas.  —  A  man  was  still  wanted  with  a  mind 
sufficiently  powerful  and  flexible  to  think  anew  the  doctrinal 
synthesis  of  St.  Anselm  and  qualify  it  with  the  additions 
proposed  by  so  many  illustrious  doctors.  This  man  was 
St.  Thomas. 

According  to  the  teaching  of  the  Angel  of  the  School, 
God  might  have  allowed  men  to  remain  in  their  sin ;  in  other 
words,  the  Redemption  was  not  necessary  but  only  fit,  be- 
cause it  manifested  in  the  highest  degree  the  attributes  of 
God  :  His  mercy,  justice,  wisdom,  and  power2.  Further- 
more, God  might  have  granted  His  forgiveness  without 
exacting  adequate  satisfaction,  or  even  without  exacting  any 
satisfaction  at  all.  His  justice  would  not  have  been  injured 
thereby3.  Consequently  the  Incarnation  itself  was  not  ne- 
cessary. It  was,  however  becoming,  whether  for  leading 
us  to  good  by  exciting  our  faith,  our  hope,  and  our  love,  or 
for  turning  us  from  sin4. 

Nevertheless,  in  the  hypothesis  —  which  is  now  a  fact  — 
that  God  required  adequate  satisfaction,  Redemption  through 
the  expiation  of  the  Incarnate  Word  became  necessary ;  for 
mortal  sin  is  an  action  by  which  man  turns  completely  away 
from  God,  his  last  end,  and  becomes  attached  to  creatures. 
Hence  the  injury  to  God.  And  as  the  gravity  of  the  offense 
is  proportionate  to  the  dignity  of  the  one  offended,  sin  may 
be  said  to  give  infinite  dishonor5.  Now,  such  a  dishonor 


\.Ibid.,  q.  6,  ad  4um. 

2.  In  Illa  Sent.,  dist.  xx,  q-  1,  art.  \,  sol.  i,  and  n. 

3.  Sum.  theol.,  III*,  q.  XLXI,  a.  2,  ad  3um. 

4.  Ibid.,  IIP  q.  i,  a,  1. 

5.  Ibid.,  Ill",   q.  i.  a.  2,  ad  2um  :  Peccalum  contra  Deum  commissum 
quamdam  infinitatem  habet  ex  inftnitate  divinse  majeslatis.    This  princi- 
ple of  the  theology  of  St.  Thomas  was  questioned  by  Duns  Scotus,  who  held 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  33:i 

could  be  repaired  only  by  the  homage  of  the  Incarnate 
Word. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  that  in  the  opinion  of  St.  Thomas, 
as  well  as  in  that  of  St.  Bonaventure,  but  a  single  act  of 
the  Incarnate  Word  would  have  been  enough  for  adequate 
reparation.  But,  just  as  God  had  decreed  adequate  re- 
paration, so  He  decreed  that  this  reparation  should  be 
made  by  the  Passion  of  the  Savior.  And  it  was  quite  fit- 
ting that  this  should  be  so  ;  for  in  that  way  God  would  make 
us  understand  better  the  horror  that  we  should  entertain 
for  sin,  and  make  us  see  the  greatness  of  His  love.  God 
would  give  us,  in  Christ,  the  most  perfect  example  of  obedi- 
ence, humility,  constancy,  and  justice1.  Hence,  since  God 
exacted  adequate  satisfaction,  expiation  through  the  Incar- 
nate Word  was  necessary;  for  God  had  decreed  that  this 
expiation  be  made  through  Christ's  Passion. 

St.  Thomas  carries  his  investigations  much  further.  He 
examines  how  the  Passion  of  Christ  satisfied  for  sin.  So  cruel 
were  His  sufferings,  so  great  His  sensibility,  and  so  exalted 
the  motives  that  inspired  Christ 2,  that  His  passion  exceeded 
anything  that  man  could  undergo.  He  died  out  of  love  for 
God  and  men,  to  remove  sin,  the  obstacle  that  separated 
creatures  from  God.  This  passion  was  imposed  upon  him  as 
the  principal  portion  of  his  Messianic  work.  In  it  obedience 


that  a  pure  creature,  duly  endowed  with  divine  grace,  was  capable  of  offering  an 
equivalent  satisfaction,  on  the  supposition  that  God  would  require  such  ;  for  sin 
has  by  no  means  an  infinite  gravity.  Cf.  DUNS  SCOTUS,  In  HI"*,  dist.  xx.  Contra 
ea  qux  dicuntur  in  secundo  articulo. 

1.  Sum.  theol.,  III",  q.  xi.vi,  a  3  :  Per  hoc  aulem  quod  homo  per  Christi 
passionem  liberatus  esl,  multa  concurrerunt  ad  salutcm   hominis  perti- 
nenlia,  prxter  liberationem  a  peccato.    Primo  enim  per  hoc  homo  cognoscit 
Quantum  Deus  hominem  diligat,  et  per  hoc  provocalur  ad  sum  diliyenduin, 
in  quo  perfectio  humanx  salutis   consistit.     Secundo,  quia   per  hoc  dedit 
nobis  exemplum  obedienlix,  humilitalis,  constantix,  justitix  et  ceterarum 
virlulum  in  passione  Christi  ostensarum,  qux  sunl  nccessnrix  ad  humanam 
salulem... 

2.  Ibid.,  Ill",  q.  XLVI,  a.  5-8. 


336  GOD. 

was  joined  to  love.  Far  from  lessening  the  love,  it  rendered 
it  even  greater.  Moreover,  the  essential  quality  of  the  Pas- 
sion was  its  freedom  *.  Such  was  the  work  of  love  and 
obedience  by  which  the  Savior  satisfied  for  man's  sin. 

Christ's  satisfaction  lay  in  this,  that  He  offered  to  God  a 
homage  not  only  equal  to  that  refused  by  men,  but  far  su- 
perior to  it.  Besides,  He  merited  that  man  be  reconciled  to 
God  and  be  given  the  life  of  grace.  His  satisfaction  bore 
also  the  character  of  penalty  for  sin.  God  had  decreed  that 
our  sins  should  be  pardoned  only  by  means  of  an  atonement 
proportionate  to  the  fault,  and  Christ  made  this  expiatory 
sacrifice  on  the  cross  and  thereby  obtained  the  remission 
of  our  sins.  We  should  observe,  however,  that,  according  to 
St.  Thomas,  Christ's  Passion,  though  truly  a  penalty,  is  above 
all  a  satisfaction,  viz.,  a  sublime  homage  of  love  and  obedi- 
ence offered  to  God  to  blot  out  the  dishonor  caused  by  the 
sins  of  men  2. 


1.  Sum.  lhebt.,111*,  q.  XLVI,  a.  1-3. 

2.  SABATIER  opines  that  the  idea  of  St.  Thomas  on  satisfaction  is  founded  oa 
«  Roman  Law  »  and  practically  amounts  to   a  satisfaction  made  through  the 
legal  punishment  deserved  and  undergone.     Cf.    La  doctrine  de  I'expiation 
et  son  evolution  historique,  p.  59.    HARNACK  observes  that,  on  the  contrary, 
this  idea  hardly  obtains  in  the  works  of  St.  Thomas.     Cf.    History  of  Dogma, 
vol.  VI,  pp.  192-193.    Harnack's  observation  is  correct,  but  his  regret  is  out  of 
place.    For  this  idea  of  penal  substitution,  even  though  well  founded,  is  none 
the  less  secondary.    St.  Thomas  understood  too  well  that  the  Passion  of  Christ, 
though  it   was  a  penalty,  and   the  penalty  for  our  sins,    was  preeminently  a 
sublime  act  of  love  and  obedience  :  this  is  why   he  did   not  make  satisfaction 
consist  in  a  mere  penal  vengeance,   but  rather,  with  St.  Ansplm,  in  a  work  of 
high  moral  order.    Cf.    J.  RIVIKRK,  op.  cit.,  u,  p.  103-104. 


CHAPTER  II 

VICARIOUS  SATISFACTION 

The  preceding  chapters,  while  treating  principally  of  the 
fact  of  the  Redemption,  taught  us  something  also  of  the 
manner  of  this  act.  This  question,  both  because  of  its  in- 
trinsic importance  and  because  of  the  objections  that  Pro- 
testants have  urged  against  it,  deserves  special  treatment. 
Hence,  we  shall  give  in  the  first  place  the  doctrine  of  the 
Church,  and  we  shall  then  see  what  is  to  be  thought  of  the 
objections  urged  against  this  doctrine. 

The  Church's  Doctrine.  -  -  The  fulfilment  of  the  moral 
law,  whether  natural  or  positive,  consists  in  obedience  to 
God's  will,  of  which  this  law  is  the  expression ;  in  recognizing 
God  as  our  Master;  and  in  proclaiming  His  omnipotence  and 
His  infinite  wisdom.  To  put  it  more  simply,  the  fulfilment 
of  the  moral  law  consists  in  obeying  God's  will  and  thereby 
honoring  Him.  The  transgression  of  this  law,  on  the  other 
hand,  consists  in  disobeying  God  and  thereby  dishonoring 
and  offending  Him.  An  act  of  disobedience  by  which  we 
dishonor  and  offend  God  is  called  sin. 

If  man  sins,  God  has  a  right,  before  pardoning  him,  to 
demand  that  the  dishonor  caused  by  man's  disobedience  be 
repaired  by  the  homage  of  submission;  and  this  is  satisfac- 
tion. Let  us  add  farther,  that  God  has  a  right  to  demand 
proportionate  satisfaction;  that  is,  an  act  which  honors  Him 
to  the  same  degree  that  sin  dishonored  Him. 

T.  i.  22 


338  GOD. 

With  these  principles  in  mind,  let  us  recall  our  own 
sad  history  and  the  manner  in  which  God  intervened  to  save 
us.  By  transgressing  the  precept  imposed  upon  him,  man 
dishonored  God.  God  might  have  allowed  man  to  remain  in 
this  state;  or  he  might  have  forgiven  man  without  exacting 
any  satisfaction  at  all,  or  upon  the  condition  of  a  merely 
partial  satisfaction.  But  this  he  did  not  do.  Prompted  by 
His  love  and  by  the  desire  to  show  us  at  the  same  time  —  for 
our  greater  good  —  the  extent  of  His  justice,  as  well  as  the 
opposition  that  exists  between  sin  and  Himself,  He  decreed 
that  we  obtain  forgiveness  by  making  proper  satisfaction. 
It  was  His  love,  therefore,  that  led  Him  to  forgive  us  and  to 
grant  His  forgiveness  only  upon  the  payment  of  an  adequate 
ransom. 

But  then  it  is  evident  that  man  was  powerless  to  offer 
such  a  satisfaction;  for,  by  the  very  fact  that  God  was  the 
one  dishonored  by  sin,  the  gravity  of  sin  was,  we  may  say, 
infinite.  Then  it  was  that  God  determined  to  save  us  through 
the  expiation  of  the  Incarnate  Word. 

A  single  act  of  submission  performed  by  our  divine 
Redeemer  would  have  sufficed  to  offer  God  the  honor  re- 
quired by  Him  for  perfect  reparation.  But  we  should  not 
thereby  have  understood  sufficiently  the  extent  of  th^  justice 
and  the  holiness  of  God,  and  the  opposition  that  exists  be- 
tween God  and  sin.  We  should  not,  then,  have  been  suf- 
ficiently inspired  with  horror  for  sin,  and  consequently  we 
should  have  more  lightly  risked  our  salvation.  Hence  it 
was  that  God  made  our  satisfaction  depend  upon  the  obedience 
of  the  Incarnate  Word ;  upon  an  obedience  freely  given  and 
ever  inspired  by  love  for  men  and  by  contempt  tor  t  iesins 
that  crushed  them;  an  obedience  carried  even  unto  the  death 
of  the  cross.  Thus  did  our  Savior  satisfy  for  us,  ;md  this  is 
what  we  mean  by  the  dogma  of  vicarious  satisfaction 

This  dogma,  as  old  as  the  Church  in  substam  e,  it  not 
in  technical  form,  is  contained  in  the  dogma  of  the  Uedpm- 
ption.  And  even  in  its  explicit  formula,  the  dogma  of  the 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  339 

vicarious  satisfaction  is  proclaimed  in  one  of  the  chapters  of 
the  council  of  Trent,  where  it  is  said  that  Christ  merited  our 
justification  by  satisfying  for  our  sins  \  With  the  intention 
of  putting-  to  an  end  all  controversies  on  this  point,  the 
Fathers  of  the  Vatican  council  drew  up  this  docirine  in  a 
special  proposition,  but  this  unfortunately  remained  in  rough 
draft  2. 

Protestant  attacks.  —  Of  late  years  the  doctrine  of  vi- 
carious satisfaction  has  been  furiously  attacked  by  Protestants. 
They  have,  it  is  true,  but  raised  old  objections,  many  of  which 
are  found  in  the  old  text-books  among1  the  difficulties  usually 
given  either  to  clear  up  some  question  or  to  exercise  the 
mind  of  the  students. 

First  Objection.  —  Sabatier  accuses  Catholic  theologians 
of  having  perverted  the  meaning  of  the  Passion  and  death 
of  Christ.  They  have  made  it,  according  to  this  writer,  a 
merely  penal  satisfaction  offered  to  appease  God's  wrath  and 
to  satisfy  His  vengeance  3. 


1.  Bess.  VI,    c.    VH,    DENZ.,   799  :   Jesus   Christus...    sua   sanctissima 
passionein  liyno  crucis  nobis  juslificationem  meruit,  el  pro  nobis  Deo  I'atri 
satisfecit. 

2.  This  proposition  is  quoted  in  HURTER,  vol.  II,  p.  531,  and  in  KIVIKUK,  op. 
cit.,  i,  p.  11   :  Si  quis  non  confiteatur  ipsum  Deum   Verbum  in  assumpta 
carne  palicndo  el  moriendo  pro  peccatis  noslris  potuisse  satisfacerc  vel  vere 
et  proprie  satis fecisse:  A.  S. 

3.  Cf.  A.  SABATIER,  La   doctrine  de  I'expiation  et  .ion   toolution  kisto- 
rique  :  «  Has  Jesus  even  the  remotest  idea  of  dying  in  order  to  render  to  the 
justice  of  his  Father  a  penal  satisfaction,  without  which  the  Father  would   no 
longer  be  Father  »?    (p.  23).    And  again  :  «  Even  so  punishment  is  necessary; 
such  is  the  Roman  and  the  Jewish  law.    To  forgive  one  that  repents  from  his 
heart,  is  Ihe  Gospel  teaching.    The   superiority  of  the  Christian  notion  of  the 
Father  consists  precisely  in    this  rising    above  the  sentiments  of  reprisal  and 
vindication;  it  lies  in  wishing  not  the  death  of  the  sinner,  but  rather  his  conver- 
sion and  his  life  ».    (p.  95).    That,  then,  is  «  a  very  low  notion  of  justice,  which 
claims  punishment  for  punishment's  sake,  for  the  pleasure  of  causing  suffering  ». 
(p.  100). 


340  GOD. 

Answer.  —  But  assuredly  such  is  not  our  teaching  ;  it  is 
the  doctrine  neither  of  St.  Anselm  nor  of  St.  Thomas.  We 
look  upon  the  Passion  of  Christ  as  above  all  a  sublime  homage 
of  love  and  obedience  offered  by  our  Savior  to  God  the  Father 
to  repair  the  injury  done  by  man's  sin. 

This  satisfaction,  to  be  sure,  is  also  a  penalty  for  sin ; 
but  by  this  we  do  not  mean  at  all  a  punishment  exacted 
merely  for  the  sake  of  punishment,  or  for  the  pleasure  of 
causing  pain  —  a  sort  of  divine  vengeance.  If  God  requires 
that  sin  be  punished  by  a  penalty  proportionate  to  it,  by  a 
penalty  which  amply  satisfies  the  divine  justice,  He  does  so 
merely  out  of  love  and  mercy,  and  in  accord  with  His  divine 
plan  of  salvation.  He  wishes  to  show  us  thereby  the  extent 
of  His  justice  and  of  His  holiness;  He  wishes  to  showr  us  the 
great  opposition  that  exists  between  sin  and  Himself,  in 
order  to  inspire  us  with  a  horror  for  what  offends  Him  and  to 
ground  us  more  thoroughly  in  virtue  1 . 

Second  Objection.  —  Sabatier  points  out  that,  according 
to  Catholic  theologians,  man's  reconciliation  with  God  comes 
about  through  the  cessation  of  the  conflict  which  sin  raises 
between  God's  justice  and  His  love.  God  could  no  longer 
love  us  because  His  offended  justice  would  no  longer  permit 
of  this.  Satisfaction  had  to  be  rendered  ;  and  only  after 
this  had  been  offered  could  God's  love  again  be  exercised 
towards  us.  Hence,  far  from  being  the  effect  of  God's  love, 
the  Savior's  Passion  was  rather  its  cause,  its  motive  2. 


1.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  when  we  speak  of  the  avenging  justice,  or  of 
the  wrath  of  God,  this  metaphor  —  with  which  \ve  can  scarcely  dispense  —  is 
used  simply  to  signify  holiness  in  the  presence  of  sin.    It  is  equivalent  to  the 
Latin  term  justitia  in  its  broad  sense,  which  implies  a  great  deal  more  than  the 
simple  virtue  of  justice  by  which  we  render  to   every  one  what  belongs  to 
him. 

2.  Ibid.  :  «  The  most  serious  consequence  flowing  from  the  old  juridical 
and  legal  view,  was  the  introduction  of  an  irreconcilable  dualism  in  the  notion 
of  the  Christian  God...    One  would  think  that  there  was  an  internal  conflict 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  341 

Answer.  —  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  how  our  teaching 
on  the  Redemption  could  be  more  grossly  misrepresented. 
True,  indeed,  God  might  have  kept  back  His  forgiveness; 
and,  if  He  forgave  sinners,  it  was  through  love  that  He  did 
so.  His  forgiveness  might  have  been  granted  without 
making  any  exactions  on  the  part  of  man,  or  with  the  exaction 
of  a  merely  partial  satisfaction.  If  He  chose  to  require  ade- 
quate satisfaction,  it  was  only  to  show  us  the  chasm  that  sin 
puts  between  us  and  Himself.  So  warned,  we  would  more 
studiously  avoid  sin  and  all  the  more  carefully  refrain  from 
endangering  our  salvation.  Love,  then,  is  the  cause  of  our 
Redemption  such  as  it  was  wrought.  Love  has  done  every- 
thing. 

Third  Objection.  —  It  nevertheless  remains  true,  con- 
tinues Sabatier,  that  God  could  not,  according  to  your  the- 
ology, pardon  solely  out  of  love1. 

Answer.  —  This  objection  is  perhaps  directed  against 
the  doctrine  of  St.  Anselm.  But  we  should  not  forget  that 


going  on  between  God's  justice  and  His  clemency  so  that  neither  of  these 
attributes  could  be  exercised  without  proving  derogatory  to  the  other.  Instead 
of  being  the  Savior  of  men,  Christ  became  a  sort  of  extra-divine  mediator, 
whose  chief  function  it  was  to  reconcile  these  hostile  attributes  in  God  and  to 
make  peace  and  unity  reign  in  the  bosom  of  the  Godhead  ».  (p.  63).  And 
elsewere  (cf.  L'Apdtre  Paul,  p.  323)  he  says  :  «  The  ecclesiastical  theory  of 
expiation,  far  from  being  the  just  expression  of  the  thought  of  the  Apostle 
(Paul),  has  come  to  be  the  formal  contradiction  of  that  thought.  The  idea  of  an 
exterior  satisfaction,  granted  to  God  to  wring  from  him  the  pardon  of  sinners, 
is  foreign  to  all  our  epistles.  Paul  nowhere  says  that  God  had  to  be  appeased. 
His  point  of  view  wus  diametrically  the  opposite  of  this.  The  forgiveness  of 
sins  was  ever  a  free  act  of  the  love  of  God.  In  Ihn  work  of  the  Redemption,  it 
is  God's  sovereign  and  absolute  grace  that  takes  the  iniative  and  follows  it  out 
to  its  logical  extent.  The  sacrifice  of  Christ  is  an  effect  of  God's  love,  and  in 
no  way  the  cause  of  that  love.  It  was  not  a  work  accomplished  outside  the 
sphere  of  divine  grace,  and  in  a  manner  outside  of  God  Himself,  and  intended  to 
influence  the  divine  will...  Paul  does  not  admit  of  this  dualism  between  the 
love  and  the  justice  of  God.  » 

1.  Ibid.,  Doctrine  de  I'expiation,  pp.  53-54. 


342  GOD. 

this  great  doctor  was  the  first  to  attempt  to  formulate  as 
he  did  the  doctrine  of  the  Redemption.  The  rigidity  of  his 
system,  however,  was  softened  down  by  those  who  took  up 
his  line  of  thought;  and  even  to-day  theologians  do  not 
hesitate  to  criticise  St.  Anselm  on  these  grounds1. 

To  find  the  last  word  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Redemption, 
we  must  turn  to  the  works  of  St.  Thomas,  and  not  to  those 
of  St.  Anselm. 

Fourth  Objection.  —  Sabatier  does  not  yield.  With 
direct  reference  to  the  doctrine  of  satisfaction  as  exposed  by 
St.  Anselm,  and  referring  indirectly  to  the  doctrine  as  taught 
by  the  Church,  he  claims  that  Anselm  drew  his  theory 
from  the  idea  of  germanic  Law,  according  to  which,  every 
misdemeanor  entails  the  payment  of  a  certain  sum  of  money, 
or  Wergeld.  This  is  not  properly  speaking  a  punishment, 
but  rather  a  fine,  a  simple  compensation,  a  satisfaction. 
This  is  what  St.  Anselm  had  in  mind  when  he  laid  down 
the  principle  :  Necesse  esl  ut  omne  peccatum  satisfactio  aut 
poena  sequatur2. 

Answer.  —  The  two  ideas  are  not  identical;  the  like- 
ness is  artificial.  Though  St.  Anselm  does  not  insist  upon 
the  penal  nature  of  satisfaction,  he  always  takes  it  for  granted ; 
for  him  satisfaction  includes  the  payment  of  the  penalty 
for  the  sins  of  men.  Moreover,  this  idea  of  penal  satis- 
faction, if  not  formally  expressed,  is  found  in  substance  in 
patristic  tradition3.  And  finally,  this  opinion,  which  Saba- 


1.  Cf.  V.  BAINVEL,  art.  Saint  Anselme,in  the  Diet,  de  theol.  calhol.,col.  1346. 
In  reviewing  the  criticisms  of  Dorholt,    who  attempts  to  justify  St.  Anselm 
—  and  succeeds  in  his  attempts  on  several  points  —  BAINVEL  observes  that  it 
would  be  far  better  to  acknowledge  candidly  that  St.  Anselm  «  except  here  and 
there insists  too  strongly  upon  the  impossibility  of  pardon  pure  and  simple.  » 

2.  Ibid.,  p.  54 

3.  See  above  the  argument  drawn  from   the    Tradition  of  the  Fathers, 
p.  314-329. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  343 

tier  borrows  from  Ritschl,  is  discarded  by  Loofs1  and  Har- 

nack2. 

/ 

Fifth  Objection.  —  What  Harnack  most  objects  to  in 
the  doctrine  of  Satisfaction,  is  the  fact  that  this  satisfaction 
gives  God  the  honor  of  which  sin  deprived  Him.  How,  he 
asks,  could  God's  honor  be  in  any  way  affected3? 

Answer.  -  -  Catholic  theology  has  always  made  a  dis- 
dinction  between  God's  internal  essential  honor  and  His 
honor  ad  extra,  which  depends  upon  the  manner  in  which 
creatures  carry  out  the  plan  of  creation.  The  lower  crea- 
tures honor  God  out  of  necessity,  by  the  natural  exercise 
of  their  powers;  but  man  must  glorify  God  freely,  by  ful- 
filling the  moral  law  inscribed  in  the  heart  and  the  positive 
law  given  by  revelation.  If  man  fails  to  tend  towards  God, 
he  causes  a  certain  disorder  in  the  Creator's  plan  and  there- 
reby  fails  to  recognize  God's  sovereignty.  Such  is  the  dis- 
honor caused  by  sin;  and  Christ,  by  being  obedient  even 
unto  the  death  of  the  cross,  repaired  this  dishonor. 

Sixth  Objection.  —  Harnack  does  not  see  how  Christ 
could  remain  free  in  accepting  his  sufferings  and  his  death, 
since  we  claim  that  His  Passion  was  imposed  upon  Him  by 
the  will  of  God,  and  that  this  was  the  chief  part  of  His  Mes- 
sianic function*. 

Answer.  —  In  the  union  of  these  two  ideas  there  is  in- 
deed a  mystery  which  theologians  have  sought  by  various 
hypotheses  to  elucidate5.  In  explaining  this  question  we 


1.  LOOKS  Leilftulenzuin  Studium  der  Dogmengexchichle,  p.  271  (3d.  odj. 

2.  HAHINACK,  History  of  Dogma,  vol.  IV,  pp.  56-57,  note  3. 

3.  History  of  Ijocjma,  VI,  p.  72. 

4.  Ibid.,  73. 

3.  Of.  supra,  p.  342. 


344  GOD. 

said  that  Christ's  impeccability  sprang  from  the  fact  that  He 
was  confirmed  in  grace ;  and  that  confirmation  in  grace  does 
not  preclude  the  exercise  of  free  will. 

Seventh  Objection.  —  For  all  these  reasons  Protestants 
conclude  that  Christ's  Redemption  had  but  the  moral  value 
of  example;  this  example  was  the  life  of  Christ,  which  was 
crowned  by  a  death  that  was  accepted  for  the  triumph  of 
truth  and  love.  In  the  light  of  this  principle  they  explain 
human  life  and  show  the  place  that  Christ's  example  should 
occupy  in  our  lives.  We  ought  to  conform  to  the  law  of 
duty  by  becoming  more  and  more  our  own  masters;  that 
is,  by  putting  our  will  above  our  senses  and  by  renouncing 
our  evil  inclinations.  This  is  conversion,  moral  regeneration. 
But  how  are  we  to  make  up  for  the  moral  evil  that  pre- 
ceded or  that  accompanies  this  conversion?  Where  are  we  to 
look  for  that  satisfaction  which  God  in  His  absolute  justice 
demands?  We  shall  find  it  in  the  intense  pain  that  we 
must  undergo,  if  we  would  be  true  observers  of  the  moral 
law  —  a  hard  and  uncongenial  task,  indeed!  But  Christ 
will  help  us  in  its  performance.  He  realized  to  a  sublime 
degree  the  moral  perfection  which  the  conscience  of  each 
one  holds  before  him;  and  in  this  way  He  is  our  example, 
and,  consequenly,  our  Savior. 

Answer.  —  This  doctrine,  first  maintained  by  Abelard 
and  later  taught  by  the  Socinians  in  the  fifteenth  century, 
has  found  no  abler  expositor  than  Kant. 4  After  Kant,  Ritschl 
took  it  up  and  gave  it  a  less  austere  and  a  more  sentimental 
character2;  whilst  Sabatier became  its  propagator  in  France 3- 


1.  Die  Religion  innerhalb  der  Grenzen   desblossen  Vernunfl. 

2.  A  good  exposition  of  the  doctrine  of  Ritschl  may  be  found  in  RIVIERE, 
»p.  cit.,  I,  pp.  22-26. 

3.  Cf.  Doctrine  de  Vexpiation  :  «  There  are  no  grounds  for   saying  that 
Jesus  on  the  cross  was  under  any  special  supernatural  condemnation...  Jesus 
suffers  more  and  better  than  Socrates,  the  martyrs,  the  sages,  or  in  a  word,  all 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  345 

We  have  only  to  remark  that  we  too  admit  that  by  His 
life,  sufferings,  and  death,  Christ  has  given  the  world  the 
most  beautiful  example  of  the  virtues  that  men  should  prac- 
tice. Perhaps  no  one  has  stated  this  doctrine  with  greater 
precision  than  has  St.  Thomas1.  But  furthermore,  appealing 
to  Holy  Writ,  to  the  Tradition  of  the  Fathers,  to  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Schoolmen,  and  the  definitions  of  the  Church, 
we  maintain  that,  by  a  life  obedient  even  unto  the  death  of 
the  cross,  a  life  constantly  inspired  by  the  love  of  God  and 
man,  Christ  rendered  satisfaction  for  the  dishonor  offered 
to  God  and  thus  paid  the  penalty  due  the  sins  of  man  and 
required  by  the  infinite  justice  and  love  of  God;  Christ 
merited  the  reconciliation  between  God  and  men,  and 
imparted  to  men  the  life  of  grace. 


the  just,  entangled  by  their  very  life  into  the  trammels  which  the  wicked  weave 
around  them  ;  but  his  sufferings  were  not  different  from  Iheirs  »  (p.  87).  — 
The  reason  for  this  is  that  «  no  one  can  make  himself  independent  of  the  group 
to  which  he  organically  belongs,  and  the  whole  body  suffers  through  the  faults, 
and  benefits  through  the  virtues  of  the  members  that  compose  it  »  (p.  20). 
1.  Cf.  supra,  p.  334-336. 


THE  WORK   OF  THE  REDEMPTION. 

After  having  established  the  fact  of  the  Redemption  and 
shown  in  it  the  character  of  satisfaction,  there  now  remains 
to  be  considered  the  work  of  the  Redemption  in  itself,  in 
order  that  we  may  understand  better  its  divine  economy. 

By  His  life  of  suffering,  which  ended  on  the  cross,  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  bought  the  human  race  out  of  the  bon- 
dage of  sin;  and  that  He  might  bring  all  men,  generation 
after  generation  to  the  end  of  time,  to  avail  themselves  of 
this  salvation,  Christ  has  continued  His  work  of  Redemption. 
principally  through  the  ministry  of  His  priests.  We  shall 
consider  first  the  Work  of  the  Redemption  as  performed  by 
our  Lord  in  the  course  of  His  passible  and  mortal  life,  and 
then  the  Continuation  of  His  work  of  Redemption. 

ARTICLE  I 
The  Work  of  the  Redemption  Accomplished  by  Our  Lord. 

Object  and  Division  of  this  Article.  -  -  The  work  of  the 
Redemption  consisted  in  Christ's  offering  Himself  to  God  the 
Father  as  a  sacrifice  of  expiation  for  the  sins  of  all  men. 

Expiatory  Sacrifice  for  the  Sins  of  the  People,  Accord- 
ing to  Leviticus.  —  Leviticus  distinguishes  three  kinds  of 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  347 

bloody  sacrifices  :  the  holocaust,  OP  the  sacrifice  of  adoration; 
the  peace  offering,  of  which  there  were  two  great  classes  : 
the  sacrifice  of  thanksgiving  and  the  sacrifice  of  impetration; 
and  the  sacrifice  of  expiation,  or  propitiation,  so  called 
because  it  was  an  expiation  offered  to  God  to  render  Him 
propitious,  that  is,  to  obtain  of  Him  the  forgiveness  of  sin. 
Of  these  sacrifices  the  last  is  the  most  important  and  the 
only  one  with  which  we  need  be  concerned,  for  in  a  sense 
it  contains  the  others ;  for,  it  had  to  be  implicitly  a  sacrifice 
of  adoration,  of  thanksgiving,  and  of  impetration.  God 
could  grant  His  pardon  only  on  the  condition  that  His  sove- 
reignty, once  ignored  be  again  recognized,  that  gratitude 
be  shown  for  His  gifts,  and  that  forgiveness  be  asked  of 
Him1. 

This  sacrifice  then  consisted  in  this  that  the  Israelite  who 
would  obtain  pardon  for  his  sins  should  come  to  the  temple 
and  otfer  a  pure  victim,  that  is,  a  victim  that  possessed  all 
the  marks  of  legal  purity.  The  sacrifice  began  by  the  rite 
of  the  imposition  of  hands,  performed  by  the  oif'erer  upon 
the  victim.  This  rite,  wholly  symbolical,  made  the  victim 
a  kind  of  substitution  for  the  person  of  the  offerer,  and 
thenceforth  the  victim  represented  the  offerer  before  G'j<l 
and  bore  the  weight  of  his  sin  2. 

After  the  imposition  ofhands  the  victim  was  immolated 
by  the  priest 3,  who  wet  his  finger  in  the  victim's  blood 


1.  The  unbloody  sacrifices  consisted  of  corn,  wheat,  unleavened  broad,  and  of 
libations.    Every  day  there  was  offered  in  the  Holy  place  incense  upon  the  altar 
of  perfumes,  there  wen;  presented  the  «  loaves  of  proposition  »  upon  the  table 
of  the  sanctuary ;  and  the  oil   that   was  used  in  the  golden   candelabrum   was 
con.sidert'.d  as  a  sort  of  sacrifice. 

2.  Lev.,  I,  3,  iv,  21-24;  xvi;  xvii,  11.     In  the  sacrifice  for  sin  the  victim  is 
so  clearly  a  substitute  for  the  sinful  person  that  it  is  almost  alwavs  called  the 
victim  for   sin,   as  though  the   iniquity  of  the   one  offering  the   sacrifice  were 
transferred  to  the  victim.    St.    Paul  says  boldly  that  Christ  became  sin  for  us 
;cf.  //  Cor.,  v,  21),  that  is,  the  victim  for  th«  sins  of  men. 

3.  Levites,  lay  people,  or  even  sinners  could  immolate  the  victim.    But  only 
be  priest  could  take  the  blood  and  make  the  aspersion.    Furthermore,  the  High 


348  GOD. 

and  touched  or  sprinkled  the  four  corners  of  the  altar.  The 
immolation  of  the  victim  and  the  sprinkling1  of  blood  were 
the  principal  parts  of  the  sacrifice.  , 

It  was  at  this  time  that  expiation,  strictly  so  called, 
took  place.  The  blood  was  considered  to  contain  life.  The 
shedding  of  this  blood  before  the  face  of  God,  in  the  immo- 
lation of  the  victim  and  the  aspersion  that  followed,  was 
looked  upon  as  the  offering  of  a  life  *.  The  victim  represented 
the  sinner  and  its  blood  or  its  life  represented  the  blood  or 
the  life  of  the  sinner;  hence,  in  offering  the  blood  or  the  life 
of  the  victim,  the  blood  or  the  life  of  the  sinner  was  symbolic- 
ally offered.  And  as  God  sanctifies  everything  He  touches, 
He  sanctified  the  life  of  the  sinner  in  accepting  it  in  this 
symbolical  form.  He  made  the  life  of  the  sinner  holy,  that 
is,  he  cleansed  it  from  sin  and  restored  it  the  Spirit  of 
holiness.  In  this  renewal  in  the  Spirit  of  holiness  lay  re- 
conciliation with  God. 

But  we  must  be  careful  to  consider  its  symbolical  charac- 
ter, if  we  would  not  get  a  false  idea  of  Levitical  sacrifices. 
It  would  be  wrong  to  suppose  that  a  merely  external,  a 
purely  ritualistic  substitution  of  the  victim  for  the  sinner, 
sufficed.  In  his  heart  the  sinner  had  to  offer  himself  to  God 
and  had  to  entertain  sentiments  of  true  repentance.  The 
destruction  of  the  victim  before  the  face  of  God  was  but  a 


Priest  was  the  only  one  sufficiently  pure  to  immolate  the  victims  of  the  great 
annual  expiation  and  to  carry  the  blood  to  the  altar  and  into  the  Holy  of 
Holies. 

1.  This  peculiarity  of  the  Levitical  sacrifice  should  be  well  marked.  It 
seems  to  us  that  it  throws  a  flood  of  light  upon  the  nature  of  sacrifice.  In  order 
to  have  sacrifice,  there  must  be  shedding  of  blood  by  the  immolation  of  the 
victim  and  the  sprinkling  of  its  blood.  Now,  the  blood  contains  life,  or  is  at 
least  the  means  of  sustaining  life.  Therefore  through  the  shediling  of  blood,  a 
life  is  offered  or  given.  It  must  not  be  said  that  the  sacrifice  consists  essentially 
in  the  offering  of  life,  and  that  the  immolation  is  but  a  symbol  or  a  condition  of 
this  offering;  the  sacrifice  consists  essentially  in  the  immolation  and  the  offering 
of  the  victim ;  or,  to  be  more  exact,  in  the  immolation  and  the  offering  which 
is  included  in  the  immolation. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  349 

sign  of  the  sinner's  repentance.  This  personal  cooperation 
on  the  part  of  the  sinner  was  absolutely  necessary  for  his 
sanctification 1 . 

The  sacrifice  of  expiation  consisted,  then,  in  immolating 
before  the  face  of  God  a  victim  offered  as  a  ransom  to  wipe 
out  the  debt  of  sin  and  to  obtain  the  purification  of  the 
faithful  by  the  restoration  of  the  Spirit  of  holiness  in  his 
heart.  God  could  not  accept  the  life  of  the  sinner,  for  his 
life  was  impure;  nor  did  He  wish  to  destroy  the  human  race, 
given  over  as  it  was  to  sin ;  so  he  made  a  covenant  wit  his 
people  and  they  had  to  observe  scrupulously  the  terms  of 
this  covenant. 

There  were  two  kinds  of  expiatory  sacrifices  :  that  offered 
for  the  transgressions  of  an  individual,  and  that  offered  for 
the  sins  of  the  whole  people.  The  latter  took  place  once  a 
year,  at  the  feast  of  the  Day  of  Atonement,  which  came  five 
days  before  the  feast  of  Tabernacles.  After  immolating  the 
victim  and  sprinkling  the  four  corners  of  the  altar,  the  High 
Priest  went  and  threw  some  blood  towards  the  veil  of  the 
Holy  of  Holies.  He  also  sprinkled,  blood  on  the  top  of  the 
Arc  of  the  Covenant,  where  Yahweh  was  present  in  a 
special  manner.  The  Arc  was  called  the  propitiatory,  that 
is,  the  place  where  God  forgives  His  people  2. 

By  His  Death  on  the  Cross,  Jesus  Offered  the  Great 
Sacrifice  of  Expiation  for  the  Sins  of  the  People.--  This 


1.  A  sacrifice  offered  without  the  proper  sentiments  in  the  soul  of  the  one 
who  offered  it,  was  an  abomination  in  the  sight  of  God.    One  has  but  to  recall 
these  verses  of  the  Miserere  to  know  this,    P$.  L,  18-19  : 

Holocausiis  non  delectaberis. 

Sacrificium  Deo  spiritus  conlribulatus; 

Cor  conlrilum  et  humiliation,  Deux,  non  despicies. 

2.  Lev.,  xvi.    On  that  day  the  High  Priest  first  offered  a  calf  for  sin.    Then 
he  had  two  goats  brought   to    the  door  of  the  tabernacle.    Lots  were  drawn  to 
see  which  of  these  would  be  sacrificed  to  the  Lord,  and  which  was  to  be  chased 
into  the  desert.    The  one  to  be  sacrificed  was  then  immolated  and   his  blood 
was  used  to  sprinkle  the  altar  and  the  veil  of  the  Holy  of  Holies.    The  High 


350  GOD. 

doctrine,  taught  by  the  council  of  Trent',  is  found  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  We  find  there  that  Christ,  on  enter- 
ing into  the  world,  declared  the  inefficiency  of  the  sacrifices 
of  the  Old  Law  and  announced  that  He  came  to  offer  a  sacri- 
fice2, which  was  to  consist  principally  in  the  shedding  of  His 
blood  3.  This  was  to  be  the  great  sacrifice  of  expiaiion  for 
the  sins  of  the  whole  people.  It  was  to  be  offered  not  only 
for  the  Jewish  people,  but  for  all  the  elect  of  God4.  Hence 
was  the  blood  shed  in  the  Holy  of  Holies  5. 

This  last  expression  must  be  taken  in  a  spiritual  sense 
only.  Every  sacrifice  must  be  offered  in  a  temple.  The 
sacrifices  of  the  Old  Law  were  offered  in  the  Levitical  temple ; 
the  sacrifice  of  Christ  will  require  another  temple.  This, 
says  our  Epistle,  is  the  true  temple,  the  only  one  worthy  of 
the  name,  made  by  God  and  not  by  men.  It  is  the  temple 
that  Moses  contemplated  on  the  mountain;  it  is  the  temple 
of  heaven,  of  which  the  earthly  temple  was  but  the  fore- 
shadowing. But  heaven  means  principally  God  as  related  to 
His  glorified  creatures.  It  would  seem,  then,  that  in  saying 
that  Christ  was  to  offer  His  sacrifice  in  a  temple  far  superior 
to  the  temple  of  the  Old  Law,  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
means  that,  in  offering  His  sacrifice,  Christ  would  enter  into 
far  closer  and  more  direct  relation  with  God  than  did  the 
High  Priest  of  the  Old  Law.  As  we  have  seen,  the  High 
Priest  entered  only  once  a  year  into  the  Holy  of  Holies,  in 
order  to  sprinkle  blood  upon  the  Propitiatory. 

Christ,  then,  offered  the  great  sacrifice  of  propitiation 
for  the  sins  of  I  he  people.  But,  since  the  sacrifice  of  expi- 
ation embraced  implicitly  all  the  other  sacrifices,  Christ's 


Priest  now  came  to  Hie  other  goat,  left  alive,  and  charged  it  with  the  sins  of  the 
people.  The  goat  was  then  driven  into  the  desert. 

1.  Sess.  XXII,  c.  I-H,  DENZ.,  938. 

2.  Hebr., -a,  1-19. 

3.  Hi'br.,  ix,  12-14. 

4.  Hebr.,  x,  11-18. 

5.  Hebr.,  ix,  12. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  351 

expiatory  sacrifice  was  at   once  a  sacrifice  of  adoration,  of 
thanksgiving,  and  of  petition. 

Christ's  Sacrifice  Did  Away  with  All  the  Sacrifices  of  the 
Old  Covenant  and  is  the  Only  Sacrifice  of  the  New  Covenant. 
-  The  Old  Covenant  had  its  sacrifice  of  expiation  for  the  sins 
of  the  people,  and  also  a  number  of  other  sacrifices.  But 
these  were  merely  carnal  ordinances  imposed  upon  the 
people  until  there  would  come  an  epoch  of  reform.  These 
sacrifices  were  intended  to  foreshadow  far  in  advance  the 
new  order  of  things.  They  had  no  efficacy,  other  than  their 
efficacy  as  figures;  but  Christ  came  and,  by  shedding  His 
blood ,  realized  the  sacrifice  prefigured.  His  bloody  death 
was  the  price  of  the  transgressor  under  the  old  order  :  hence 
could  the  elect  receive  forgiveness  for  their  sins  through  the 
renewal  of  the  Spirit  of  Holiness  in  them.  Such  a  result 
could  be  attained  only  by  His  death ;  for  without  the  shedding 
of  blood  there  could  be  no  pardon.  As  the  heir  comes  into 
possession  of  the  heritage  only  at  the  death  of  the  testator, 
so  the  elect  come  into  the  possession  of  the  gifts  of  salvation 
at  the  death  of  Christ. 

But,  since  the  old  order  was  but  the  figure  of  the  new, 
the  realization  of  the  latter  did  away  with  the  former.  Christ 
crowned  all  by  a  single  sacrifice,  which  is  the  only  sacrifice 
of  the  New  Law  and  will  ever  remain  such  1 . 

The  Sacrifice  of  Christ  Consisted  in  His  Bloody  Death 
Accepted  out  of  Love  for  Men.  —  Christ  offered  himself  once 
to  take  away  the  sins  of  the  elect 2.  It  was  impossible  for 
the  blood  of  victims  to  have  of  themselves  — thas  is  without 
being  related  to  a  higher  sacrifice  —  the  power  of  obtaining 
the  lorgiveness  of  sins.  When  coming  into  the  world,  Christ 
said  to  his  Father  :  K  Sacrifices  and  oblations  Thou  wouldst 


1.  He.br.,  ix;  x,  1-18. 
1.  Hebr.,  ix,  14,  28. 


352  GOD. 

not  ...  Behold  I  come,  to  do  Thy  will,  0  Lord  ».  And  the 
Epistle  goes  onto  say  that  Christ  abolished  the  old  sacrifices, 
and  obtained  the  forgiveness  of  sins  through  the  sacrifice  He 
offered.  It  is  in  virtue  of  His  will  that  we  are  sanctified  l. 
Nor  is  this  teaching  confined  to  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 
We  find  it  also  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  where  it  is 
said  that  Christ  so  loved  us  as  to  give  Himself  up  as  a  sacrifice 
for  our  sins  2.  Christ's  sacrifice  consists,  then,  in  His  death, 
which  was  willed  out  of  love  for  us  and  was  intended  to 
secure  us  the  means  of  procuring  us  the  greatest  good  that 
can  exist,  the  salvation  of  our  souls. 

All  the  Other  Sufferings  of  Christ's  Life  Derived  their 
Redeeming  Value  from  their  Relation  to  the  Sacrifice  of  the 
Cross.  —  While  the  Gospels  point  out  only  the  relation  that 
existed  between  the  salvation  of  man  and  the  death  of  Christ, 
St.  Paul  establishes  a  relation  also  between  the  other  works 
of  Christ  and  His  sacrifice.  He  says,  for  example,  that  Christ 
underwent  the  humiliation  of  the  Incarnation  and  became 
obedient  unto  the  death  of  the  cross,  for  the  Redemption  of 
men  3.  And  again  the  Apostle  attributes  salvation  to  the 
death  of  Christ. 

The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  in  particular,  is  quite  formal 
on  this  point.  Since  man's  reclamation  from  sin  could  be 
brought  about  only  by  blood,  immolation  was  necessary. 
The  new  life  is  regarded  as  a  treasure  that  we  could  inherit 
only  through  the  death  of  the  testator  *.  The  Savior,  then, 
worked  out  our  salvation  by  means  of  all  the  works  of  His 
life,  but  particularly  by  His  death. 

These  two  views  may  be  easily  harmonized.  There  is 
no  doubt  but  the  Word  might  have  saved  men  by  merely 


1.  Hebr.,  x,  1-10. 
'2.  Eph.,  V,  2. 

3.  Philipp.,11,  4-11. 

4.  Hebr.,  ix. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  353 

undergoing  the  humiliation  of  the  Incarnation,  or  by  a  single 
act  of  the  human  nature  that  he  took  by  the  hypostatic 
union.  But  it  was  God's  will  that  the  Incarnate  Word  should 
suffer  on  the  cross,  in  order  to  save  men ;  and  to  this  will 
must  the  Word  conform.  Yet,  all  the  actions  of  His  life 
were  to  contribute  to  this  great  work,  for  all  were  to  tend 
to  the  death  on  the  cross  as  to  their  sole  end.  We  must 
conclude,  therefore,  that  Christ  saved  us  by  all  the  acts  of 
His  life,  which  ended  in  bloody  expiation  on  Calvary.  His 
entire  life  was  one  grand  perpetual  sacrifice. 

Spiritual  writers  of  the  seventeenth  century  took  hold 
of  this  doctrine  and  made  it  the  subject  of  lofty  dogmatic 
meditations.  Leaving  aside  some  of  its  accidental  and  some- 
times excessive  forms,  to  adhere  to  its  essentials,  we  find  in 
it  nothing  but  what  is  admirable  and  in  strict  conformity  with 
Scripture  and  Tradition.  Christ's  sacrifice  has  its  offering; 
the  sacrifice  takes  place  when,  upon  His  entry  into  the 
world,  Christ  takes  it  upon  Himself  to  redeem  man  by  His 
bloody  death  on  Calvary.  The  prelude  of  His  sacrifice  is 
His  entire  submission  to  the  will  of  God;  its  consummation 
is  found  in  the  death  of  the  cross,  accepted  out  of  love  for 
men;  its  fruits  are  the  glorification  of  Christ  by  His  victory 
over  death  and  His  victory  over  sin.  These  fruits  are  to 
be  reaped  throughout  the  ages,  if  the  faithful  will  only 
cooperate1. 


1.  Of.  DK  CONDREN,  L'idie  du  sacerdoce  et  du  sacrifice  de  Jesus-Christ. 
parts  1,  2,  and  3.  —  DE  BEROLLE,  Discours  de  I'Estatet  des  Grandeurs  de  Je- 
sus, Discours  3«,  8'  and  11*.  —  J.  J.  OLIER,  Introduction  a  la  vie  et  aux  verlus 
chre'tiennes,  ch.  vn,  VIH.  —  Explication  des  Ceremonies  de  la  Grand'Messe, 
I.  II,  cb,  iv.  —  TraiU  des  Saints  Ordres,  part  3,  ch.  i,  iv.  —  THOMASSIN,  DC 
Incarnations  Verbi,  1.  X,  ch.  xv-xxxi.  —  BOSSUET,  Elevations  sur  les  mysteres, 
17"  semaine,  I1'  Elevation  ;  18«  Semainc,  2'  Elevation.  —  Premier  sermon  pour 
le  mysterc  de  la  NativiU  de  N.-S ;  —  Premier  sermon  pour  la  Circoncision 
de  N.-S.;  —  Premier  sermon  pour  la  Purification  de  la  S.  V.  —  M«r  GAT, 
Elevations  sur  la  vie  et  la  doctrine  de  N.-S.  J.-C.,  8«  and  9' Elevations,  vol. 
I,  pp.  67-68,  76-82.  —  M.  LEPIN,  L'idee  du  sacrifice  dans  la  religion  chelienne. 
—  J.  GRIMAL,  The  priesthod  and  the  Sacrifice  of  Chritt. 

T.  i.  23 


354  GOD. 

The  Priesthood  of  Christ.  -  -  Christ's  priesthood  has 
something  in  common  with  the  priesthood  of  the  sons  of 
Levi.  Like  theirs,  it  is  to  be  conferred  upon  a  man  chosen 
from  among  men,  who  is  to  be  set  up  for  men  in  the  ser- 
vice of  God.  And  this  is  that  He  may  know  men  well  and 
may  have  compassion  upon  them,  and  this  in  a  way  that 
will  lead  Him  to  a  complete  and  perpetual  sacrifice  of  Him- 
self ». 

This  love  of  compassion  is  the  foundation  upon  which 
the  priesthood  must  rest.  Christ  realized  this  ideal  so  per- 
fectly that  we  may  say  that  compassionate  charity  was  the 
dominant  character  of  his  humanity. 

Apart  from  this  one  feature,  all  the  traits  of  Christ's 
priesthood  are  quite  different  from  these  of  the  old  priest- 
hood. Christ  sprang  not  from  the  priestly  tribe  of  Levi, 
but  from  the  royal  tribe  of  Juda2;  He  is  the  founder  of  a 
new  priesthood,  the  true  priesthood  prefigured  under  the 
Old  Law3.  What  is  this  priest,  that  His  priesthood  was  for 
so  many  ages  prefigured  by  another  priesthood?  The 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  says  :  «  Christ  also  (i.  e.,  like  the 
Levites)  did  not  glorify  himself  to  be  made  a  high  priest; 
but  he  that  said  unto  him  :  Thou  art  my  Son,  this  day  have 
I  begotten  thee  ».  As  he  said  in  another  place  :  «  Thou  art 


1.  Hebr.,  iv,  14-16;   v,  1-3. 

2.  Hebr.,  vii,   11-17.    God  chose  the  tribe  of  Levi  for  the  service  of  the 
sanctuary.     All  the  members  of  this  tribe  were  to  take  part  in  sacred  functions 
and  to  live  by  the  altar;  but  they  were  not  all  priests.    The  priesthood  was 
reserved  to  the  family  of  Aaron.    The  head  of  this  family  was  the  only  one  cal- 
led simply  «  Priest  »;  later  on,  c  Pontiff  »,  and  «  High  Priest  ».    The  lower 
Levites,  who  constituted  the  bulk  of  the  tribe,  could  immolate  victims,  except 
those  of  the  Day  of  Atonement,  but  they  could  never  perform  the  ceremony  of 
the  sprinkling  of  blood.    Besides  this,  they  had  a  number  of  delicate  offices  in 
watching  the  temple  and  -lending  to  it,  and  in  carrying  the  Tabernacle  and  the 
other  objects  used  in  worship.      Cf.  Ex.,  xxvui;  xxix;  —  Lev.,  vui;  —  I\'um., 
I?,  1-19;  xvill,  20-32. 

3.  Hebr.,  vii,  11-17.  Cf.  F.  PRAT,  La  Theologie  de  saint  Paul,  1.  VI,  Le 
Sacerdoce  du  Christ. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  355 

a  priest  forever  according  to  the  order  of  Melchisedech1. 
The  Holy  Ghost  would  teach  us  by  this  that  Christ  does  not 
simply  unite  in  His  person  the  two  qualities  of  Son  of  God 
and  Priest,  but  that  the  former  is  the  foundation  of  the  latter, 
and  that  he  is  priest  because  he  is  the  Son  of  God.  It  is 
because  Christ  was  the  Son  of  God  that  he  became  the  priest 
of  the  New  Testament,  and  did  offer  everywhere  and  for  all 
time  a  sacrifice  supremely  efficacious  in  blotting  out  the  sins 
of  men. 

It  is  said  in  this  passage  that  Christ  is  a  priest  accord- 
ing to  the  order  of  Melchisedech.  In  the  biblical  sense, 
this  means  after  the  manner  of  Melchisedech,  like  Melchi- 
sedech. To  show  where  the  resemblance  lies,  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  draws  a  picture  of  that  mysterious  personage, 
and  in  this  we  find  that  he  wras  clothed  with  a  priesthood  that 
was  principally  one  of  justice  and  peace,  and  was  meant  to  be 
not  only  the  figure  but  the  actual  preparation  of  the  priest- 
hood of  Christ2.  Christ's  priesthood  was  to  be,  above  all, 
one  of  justice  and  peace.  From  the  dignity  of  the  Son  of  God 
made  man,  who  is  now  risen  and  can  die  no  more,  we  see  that 
this  priesthood  was  to  be  forever  held  by  the  same  High 
Priest,  and  that  His  priesthood  was  to  be  the  only  priest- 
hood and  was  to  last  for  eternity3. 

In  summing  up  we  may  say  that  the  priesthood  of  the 
New  Testament  is  vested  in  a  man  who  is  not  only  filled 
with  love  for  his  kind  and  who  carries  that  love  the  extent 
of  complete  and  perpetual  sacrifice,  but  who  is  also  the  only 
Son  of  God,  so  that  His  priesthood  is  all-powerful  in  the 
sight  of  God.  This  priesthood  is  to  establish  justice  and 
peace  throughout  the  world.  And  finally,  since  it  is  eternal- 
ly vested  in  the  same  High  Priest,  it  is  eternal  and  u- 
nique.  These  are  the  characteristics  that  constitute  what,  to 


1.  Hebr.,  v,  4-6. 
1.  Hebr.,  vn,  1-10. 
3.  Hebr.,  vn,  23-25. 


:ir>6  GOD. 

use  biblical  language,  may  be  called  the  priestly  ord^r  ol 
Christ. 

ARTICLE  II 
Continuation  of  the  Work  of  the  Redemption. 

Object  and  Division  of  this  Article.  —  According  to  the 
great  law  of  expiation  as  contained  in  the  Sacred  Books,  sin 
could  be  pardoned  only  by  sacrifice.  In  order  to  expiate 
the  sins  of  the  world,  therefore,  the  Word  of  God  became 
man  and  offered  in  His  humanity  the  sacrifice  demanded  by 
the  divine  justice.  To  perpetuate  the  sacrifice  of  the  cross 
unto  all  times,  Christ,  on  the  eve  of  His  death  instituted  the 
Eucharistic  sacrifice  and  the  ecclesiastical  Priesthood.  By 
these  means  He  continues  the  work  of  the  Redemption. 

The  Eucharistic  Sacrifice.  —  Though  in  shedding  His 
blood  aud  in  offering  His  life,  the  God-man  represented  hu- 
man kind  before  the  throne  of  God;  though  His  expiation  was 
for  this  reason  the  expiation  of  the  human  family,  yet  indi- 
viduals were  still  wanting.  Jesus  was  alone  to  offer  Himself 
in  sacrifice;  He  was  in  the  midst  of  a  vast,  awful  solitude. 
Hence,  the  sacrifice  of  the  cross  had  to  be  renewed,  and 
that  in  a  manner  that  would  not  leave  Christ  alone  to  offer 
it,  but  would  make  men  partakers  with  Him.  This  is  the 
main  reason  for  the  Eucharistie  sacrifice. 

On  the  altar,  just  as  on  the  cross,  Jesus  Christ  immolates 
Himself  and  ofiers  Himself  for  the  sins  of  men.  But  on 
the  cross  He  shed  His  blood  in  the  offering;  while  on  the 
altar  He  offers  Himself  in  a  mysterious,  though  real,  immol- 
ation. On  the  Cross  He  immolated  and  offered  Himself  in  order 
to  make  reparation  for  us  and  to  merit  grace ;  on  the  altar 
He  immolates  and  offers  Himself  in  union  with  us,  that  the 
satisfaction  and  the  merits  of  Calvary  may  be  applied  to  us. 
On  the  cross  there  was  no  intermediary ;  on  the  altar  Christ 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  357 

again  offers  Himself,  but  He  has  associated  with  Him  a  man 
whom  He  has  consecrated  and  made  His  priest.  Now  Christ 
makes  use  of  this  priest,  in  renewing  His  sacrifice  and  offer- 
ing. He  makes  use  of  the  voice  of  this  man,  of  his  heart, 
which  is  marked  with  the  effigy  of  the  heart  of  Christ,  and 
of  his  consecrated  hands.  Moreover,  in  this  divine  sacrifice 
of  the  Eucharist,  we  both  partake  in  the  fruits  of  the  great 
sacrifice  of  the  Redemption,  and  we  commemorate  it  and 
strengthen  the  remembrance  of  it  in  our  souls.  The  Eucha- 
ristic  sacrifice  is,  then,  the  renewal  and  perpetuation  of 
the  sacrifice  of  the  cross  :  it  renews  it  in  order  to  continue 
that  sacrifice  for  ever. 

In  this  sacrifice,  says  the  council  of  Trent1,  Christ  re- 
presents or  renews  the  sacrifice  of  the  cross  through  the 
ministry  of  His  priests,  in  order  to  commemorate  that  sacri- 
fice, but  also  and  above  all,  in  order  to  allow  the  appli- 
cation of  its  elfects  to  sinners2. 


l.  Sess.  XXII,  c.  i. 

1.  From  these  considerations  we  may  see  the  spirit  in  which  we  ought  to 
attend  at  Holy  Mass.  Since  on  the  altar  our  Savior  represenls  or  renews  the 
sacrifice  of  the  cross  in  order  that  now  the  faithful  may  offer  themselves  in 
sacrifice  with  Him,  they  that  attend  Mass  must  hearken  to  His  invitation.  After 
asking  His  forgiveness  for  all  the  faults  they  have  committed,  they  will  oiler 
Him  all  that  they  possess  —  Iheir  intellect,  their  hearts,  and  their  physical 
powers.  Once  united  in  this  way  to  the  Savior,  as  the  grains  of  wheat  —  to 
use  the  beautiful  comparison  of  St.  Cyprian  —  that  have  been  ground  and  moulded 
so  that  they  now  form  but  one  Eucharistic  bread,  so  will  they  ask  Him  to 
accept  them  with  Him  in  sacrifice  and  expiation  for  Iheir  own  sins  and  for  the 
sins  of  their  brethren -.  they  will  now  form  but  a  single  victim  with  Him,  a  vic- 
tim pure  and  agreeable  in  the  sight  of  God  :  Hostiam  puram,  hostiam  sanclam, 
hostiam  immaculalam,  placentem  Deo,  Deo  acceptabilem.  If  they  receive 
holy  Communion,  they  will  bear  in  rnind  that  it  is  at  this  moment  that  they 
participate  most  actively  in  the  sacrifice,  and  so  they  will  renew  their  sentiments 
of  union  and  self-oblation.  And  all  through  the  day  they  will  strive  to  live  in 
a  manner  becoming  Christians  united  with  Jesus  Christ  and  sacrificed  with  Him; 
they  will  strive  to  imitate  His  virtues,  they  will  have  recourse  to  His  Holy 
Spirit,  and  ihey  will  endeavor  to  spread  His  kingdom  in  the  world. 

If  they  prefer,  they  may  not  only  offer  themselves  in  sacrifice  with  our  Lord, 
but  they  may  also  have  in  mind  the  intentions  lliat  He  had  on  the  cross  and 
that  He  still  has  on  the  altar.  This  method  is  well  known.  It  consists  in 


358  GOD. 

The  Ecclesiastical  Priesthood.  —  Under  the  New  Law, 
then,  there  is  but  one  sacrifice,  the  sacrifice  of  Christ.  Bui 
this  sacrifice  is  to  be  renewed  to  the  end  of  time  in  the 
sacrifice  of  the  Eucharist.  So,  too,  there  is  but  one  priesthood, 
the  priesthood  of  Christ;  there  is  but  one  priest,  and  that 
priest  is  Christ.  If  men  are  priests,  they  are  so  only  in  the 
measure  in  which  they  partake  of  the  priesthood  of  Christ, 
High  Priest;  hence  they  are  called  ministers  of  Christ 
our  Priest,  to  signify  that  they  should  devote  all  that  they 
are  and  all  that  they  have,  whether  in  the  natural  order  or  in 
the  supernatural,  to  the  service  of  Christ  the  High  Priest. 

They  form  but  one  with  Him.  Consequently  they  are 
chosen  from  among  men  that,  like  Christ,  they  may  know 
men  and  may  be  able  to  compassionate  with  them  in  their 
miseries. 

But  it  is  not  enough  for  them  to  resemble  Christ  in  being- 
men.  He  is  truly  the  Son  of  God,  and  this  is  but  just,  since  He 
is  the  one  true  priest.  But  before  calling  men  to  the  priest- 
hood, Christ  would  have  them  resemble  Him  in  this  second 
aspect  also,  in  so  far  as  a  mere  creature  can  resemble  the  only 
Son  of  God.  He  would  have  them  be  the  adopted  sons  of 
God  more  completely  than  the  simple  faithful.  The  process 
of  preparation  for  a  priest  is  a  long  one.  God  communicates 
to  them  for  a  long  time  in  advance  the  gifts  of  the  holy  Ghost 
in  order  to  get  them  accustomed  to  living  the  same  life  as 
Himself  and  to  help  them  to  imitate  His  virtues.  When  they 
have  become  like  Him  to  a  greater  degree  than  the  average 


sharing  in  the  four  ends  of  sacrifice  :  adoration,  gratitude  or  thanksgiving,  petition, 
and  propitiation,  that  is  the  offering  that  has  for  its  object  the  application  of 
She  merits  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  cross. 

Sometimes  the  pious  souls  that  assist  at  Mass  merely  recite  their  beads. 
This  devotion  is  very  natural.  No  one  shared  more  completely  in  the 
sacrifice  of  the  cross  than  did  the  Blessed  Virgin ;  no  one  participated  in  this 
sacrifice  with  more  perfect  dispositions.  It  is  therefore  a  very  wise  plan  to  assist 
at  the  Holy  Sacrifice  in  union  with  Mary  immolating  and  oii'ering  herself  with 
her  dirine  Son. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  359 

faithful,  the  moment  has  arrived  to  make  them  partakers  in 
His  priesthood.  This  comes  about  in  a  very  special  manner, 
in  order  to  imprint  upon  their  hearts  the  image  of  Christ's 
priestly  heart,  and  to  enable  them  to  offer  themselves  in 
sacrifice  for  the  Redemption  of  the  world  by  Him,  with  Him, 
in  Him,  and  in  the  same  transport  of  love  for  God  and  souls*. 


1.  These  conditions  enable  us  to  understand  how  the  Holy  Mass  should  be 
said.  On  the  one  hand  men  are  priests  only  by  the  participation  of  the  priesthood 
of  Christ.  On  the  other  hand,  Christ,  in  an  outburst  of  love  for  God  and  man, 
renews  His  sacrifice  in  order  to  obtain  the  application  of  the  satisfactions  and 
merits  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  cross.  A  priest  who  wishes  to  exercise  his  olfice. 
and  not  remain  merely  passive,  will  try  to  share  in  this  disposition  of  love  that 
animates  the  Savior  when  He  renews  His  sacrifice  for  our  salvation.  If  he  unites 
himself  thus  in  spirit  with  the  Savior,  it  cannot  be  but  all  his  works  will  be 
inspired  by  sentiments  of  love  for  God  and  men,  and  that  he  will  devote  himself 
in  perpetual  and  entire  sacrifice. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  THREE  OFFICES  OF  CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER. 

The  object  of  this  chapter  is  to  give  a  brief  survey  of 
the  doctrines  already  seen.  We  shall  here  consider  the  three 
offices  of  Christ  the  Redeemer  as  found  in  the  Prophetic  Books, 
in  the  writings  of  the  contemporaries  of  our  Lord,  and  in  the 
New  Testament. 

Doctrine  of  the  Prophets.  —  The  Messias  foretold  by  the 
Prophets  was  to  fulfil  in  an  admirable  manner  the  three  great 
offices  of  the  Jewish  people,  the  offices  of  Prophet,  Priest, 
and  King. 

The  day  is  coming,  said  the  prophets,  when  there  will 
be  awful  cataclysms.  Those  that  are  living-  in  sin  will  perish ; 
and  then  the  new  theocratic  kingdom  will  be  set  up.  God 
will  set  the  Messias  King  over  the  kingdom ;  and  his  power 
will  know  no  bounds.  Peace  will  prevail,  and  material 
prosperity,  such  as  was  never  before  heard  of,  will  be  enjoyed. 

The  revolution  accompanying  the  advent  of  God's  king- 
dom will  be  rather  a  moral  or  religious  one.  The  Messias, 
Prophet  as  well  as  King,  will  cause  justice  and  holiness  to 
reign  in  all  hearts*1. 

The  Messias  will  also  be  a  priest,  and  that  according  to 
the  order  of  Melchisedech2.  On  the  other  hand,  as  the 


1.  AMOS,    xi,    9-15.  —  Is.,  XI;  LV-LV.  —   Ez.,  XVH,  22-24.   —  JEK.,   xxx- 
xxxi.  —  DANIEL,  VH,  23-28. 

2.  Ps.  ex,  4. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  361 

Servant  of  God,  he  will  live  in  humiliation  and  sufferings, 
and  will  give  his  life  to  save  the  multitudes1.  It  is  not  made 
clear  how  he  will  be  priest  in  this  and  that  manner;  the 
synthesis  of  these  two  ideas  is  not  made. 

In  order  to  accomplish  his  work,  the  Messias,  will  possess 
the  fulness  of  the  Spirit  of  God2.  He  will  be  Emmanuel,  God 
with  us.  He  will  be  called  «  Wonderful  Counsellor,  God  the 
Mighty,  Father  of  the  world  to  come,  the  Prince  of  peace  »3. 
Him  it  is  that  the  Psalmist  salutes  in  the  canticle  when  he 
celebrates  his  beauty,  his  majesty,  his  power,  and  his  justice4. 
He  will  be,  in  a  preeminent  manner,  the  Son  of  God5.  Daniel 
beholds  one  like  unto  the  Son  of  man  coming  in  the  clouds 
of  heaven  in  great  glory6. 

Doctrine  of  Christ's  Contemporaries.  —  During  the  last 
half  of  the  closing  century  of  the  old  era  and  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  new,  there  was  expected  a  Messias  King  who  was 
to  reestablish,  in  a  superior  manner,  the  old  theocracy. 

Yet  the  eminent  holiness  of  the  Messias  was  exalted 
and  men  delighted  in  describing  the  work  of  sanctification 
that  was  to  be  wrought  in  the  world.  The  Messias  King  was 
to  be  a  Prophet  also,  and  that  of  an  eminent  quality7. 

The  priestly  character  of  the  Messias  was  not  thought  of. 
If  this  idea  existed  at  all,  it  was  confined  to  some  few  unin- 
fluential  centers8. 

Doctrine  of  the  New  Testament.  —  In  beginning  his 
account  of  Christ's  preaching  at  Jerusalem,  St.  Matthew  says 
that  «  all  this  was  done  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was 
spoken  by  the  prophets,  saying  :  «  Tell  ye  the  daughter  of 

1.  Is.,  MI,  13;  mi.  1-11. 

2.  Is.,  XI,  1-3. 

3.  Is.,  IX,  5. 

4.  Ps.  XLX,  3-10. 

5.  PS.  ll,  1. 

6.  DANIEL,  vn,  13-14. 

7.  Salomon's  Psalter,  xvn,  21-34. 

8.  Cf.  M.-J.  LACKAIXCE,  Le  Messianisme  chez  les  Juifs,  p.  236-256. 


362  GOD. 

Sion  :  Behold  thy  king  cometh  to  thee,  meek,  and  sitting-  upon 
an  ass,  and  a  colt  the  foal  of  her  that  is  used  to  the  yoke  ». 
The  disciples  went  therefore  and  did  as  Josus  commanded 
them.  And  they  brought  an  ass  and  her  colt,  and  laid  their 
garments  upon  them  and  made  him  sit  thereon.  And  a  very 
great  multitude  spread  their  garments  in  the  way,  and  others 
cut  branches  from  the  trees  and  strewed  them  in  the  way. 
And  the  multitudes  that  went  before  Jesus  and  that  followed 
him  cried  out  :  «  Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David.  Blessed  is  he 
that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord.  Hosanna  in  the  highest)). 
And  when  he  came  into  Jerusalem,  the  whole  city  was  moved. 
They  asked  :  «  Who  is  this?  »  And  the  people  answered  : 
«  This  is  Jesus,  the  Prophet  from  Nazareth  in  Galilee  n1. 

This  was  the  same  crowd  that  some  tioie  later  led  Jesus 
from  the  Sanhedrim  to  the  pretorium  of  Pilate,  and  rebuked 
Him  for  making  Himself  the  Son  of  God  and  the  king  of  the  Jews. 
Pilate  listened  to  their  complaints,  then  he  asked  Jesus,  «  Art 
thou  the  King  of  the  Jews?  »     And  Jesus  answered  :  «  I  am  » 2. 
He  is,  indeed;  but  in  the  sense  which  He  Himself  explains,  and 
which  St.  John  relates  :  «  My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world. 
If  my  kingdom  were  of  this  world  my  servants  would  surely 
have  striven  to  prevent  my  being  delivered  to  the  Jews ;  but 
no,  my  kingdom  is  not  from  hence...,.     For  this  was  I  born, 
and  for  this  came  I  into  the  world  :  that  I  should  give  testi- 
mony to  the  truth.     Every  one  that  is  of  the  truth  heareth 
my  word3.  »     Hence,  Christ  is  our  King  :  he  is  the  Light  that 
enlightens   us,  the  Life  that  quickens  us,  and  the  Way  in 
which  we  must  walk  if  wre  would  go  to  the  Father.     He  is 
our  King  :  he  is  the  Shepherd  whom  we  must  follow  if  we 
would  share  in  the  fruits  of  salvation;  He  is  the  one  that 
expiates  our  sins,  the  one  to  whom  we  must  unite  ourselves 
by  grace,  the  one  with  whom  we  must  pray,  work,  and  do 


1.  MATT.,   xxi,  4-11. 

2.  MATT.,  xxvii,  11.  —  MARK,  xv,  2. —  LUKE,  xxin,  3. 

3.  JOHN,  XVHI,  36-27. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  363 

penance.  Otherwise  there  is  no  salvation  for  us.  He  is  our 
King1,  too,  in  this  sense,  that  he  is  the  Head  of  the  Church,  a 
society  hoth  spiritual  and  visible,  through  which  He  continues 
the  work  of  the  Redemption.  This  royalty  was  His  by  right 
upon  coming  into  the  world;  but  in  fact  He  acquired  it  little 
by  little,  by  His  humiliation  and  His  labors  during  His  earthly 
life.  His  royalty  was  proclaimed  before  the  world  only  on 
5 he  day  of  His  glorious  Resurrection4. 

Rut,  in  Jesus,  the  title  of  King  is  identical  with  that  of 
Prophet,  very  different  indeed  from  what  was  expected  by 
the  people  of  Jerusalem  who  acclaimed  Him  King  on  His 
triumphal  entry  into  their  city.  He  is  both  the  prophet  who 
is  to  announce  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  to  foretell  its  duration 
for  all  time ;  and  He  is,  moreover,  to  set  up  this  kingdom  in 
the  world. 

The  prophets  proclaimed  that  the  Messias  would  be  the 
High  Priest  according  to  the  order  of  Melchisedech,  that  he 
would  be  the  Servant  of  God,  and  that  he  would  sufl'er  a  bloody 
death  for  the  salvation  of  His  people.  His  contemporaries, 
as  we  have  seen,  overlooked  this  teaching.  Rut  Jesus  made 
it  clear  both  in  His  preaching  and  in  His  actions2.  He  always 
claimed  that  he  was  sent  for  the  salvation  of  men;  He  foresaw 
and  accepted  His  death  as  a  duty;  and,  furthermore,  He  estab- 
lished a  real  relation  between  His  death  and  man's  salvation. 
His  sacrifice  did  away  with  all  the  sacrifices  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  remains  the  sole  sacrifice  of  the  New  Law.  This 
sacrifice  consists  in  the  bloody  death  He  underwent  for  men 
and  in  the  humiliations  of  His  entire  life,  which  was  one  long 
preparation  for  the  sacrifice  of  the  cross.  He  offered  Himself 
as  a  sacrifice  for  men,  thus  uniting  in  a  most  intimate  way 
the  two  characters  of  the  priesthood  of  the  New  Testament, 
vi/.,  that  of  victim  and  that  of  priest. 


1.  Cf.  BosstET,  Sermon  pour  tine  profession  prtchc  It  jour  del'Kpiphanie, 
I«r  point. 

2.  P.  BATH-POL,  L'enseignemenl  de  Jesus,  pp.  IWM'J'J. 


CHAPTER   V 

THE  'WORSHIP  OF  CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER. 

Now  that  we  are  about  to  bring  to  a  close  these  Studies 
on  Christ,  the  Incarnate  Word  and  the  Redeemer,  we  must 
examine  the  kind  of  homage,  or  worship,  that  is  due  Him. 

Preliminary  Remarks.  —  To  honor  anyone  we  must 
recognize  the  excellence  of  his  qualities  by  performing  both 
interiorly  and  exteriorly  all  the  acts  which  his  excellence 
requires  or  makes  fit.  Now,  that  honor  which  is  given  to  a 
person  of  notable  superiority,  and  manifested  by  more 
perfect,  or  more  special  acts,  is  called  worship.  Worship  is 
inspired  by  the  profound  sentiments  of  respect  engendered 
by  the  excellence  of  the  one  honored.  This  sentiment  may 
he  analyzed  into  the  simpler  sentiments  of  admiration,  of 
love  for  the  perfection  contemplated,  of  humility,  of  fear 
springing  from  a  sense  of  our  own  infirmity  and  the  danger 
we  are  in  of  being  crushed,  as  it  were,  by  the  power  of  the 
moral  personality  in  whose  presence  we  stand.  This  is  the 
subjective  basis  of  worship.  But  what  determines  the 
manifold  sentiment  whence  worship  springs,  is  the  excellence 
of  the  person  represented.  And  this  is  the  objective  basis 
of  worship. 

To  appreciate  the  moral  value  of  worship,  we  must 
examine  both  its  subjective  and  its  objective  foundations. 
If  we  merely  wish  to  determine  whether  the  worship  offered 
be  legitimate,  we  more  often  confine  our  attention  to  the 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  365 

objective  basis,  which  is  called  the  formal,  or  the  proper 
object  or  motive. 

The  worship  given  to  God  or  the  Saints  —  that  is,  re- 
ligious worship  —  may  be  viewed  in  two  ways.  We  may 
examine  its  formal,  or  proper  object,  and  we  may  consider 
its  manner. 

Since  God  is  our  Master,  we  ought  to  serve  Him ;  that 
is,  we  ought  to  do  not  our  own  will,  but  His.  In  thus 
serving  God,  we  honor  Him,  we  pay  Him  homage.  This 
homage  given  to  God  is  called  the  homage  of  adoration;  the 
XaTpsi'a  of  the  Greeks.  The  saints  were  God's  perfect  servants. 
And  we  ought  to  recognize  this  fact  by  the  performance  of 
certain  required  or  becoming  acts.  The  homage  we  pay 
to  them  is  called  the  homage  of  simple  honor,  of  veneration; 
the  Greeks  called  this  couXsia.  The  homage  paid  to  the 
Blessed  Virgin,  the  Queen  of  Saints,  is  one  of  simple  honor, 
of  veneration,  but  it  is  superior  to  that  offered  to  the  Saints. 
This  the  Greeks  called  uTuspScuXsia  4 . 

The  homage  of  adoration  or  of  simple  honor  may  be 
either  absolute  or  relative.  It  is  absolute  when  offered 
directly  to  God  or  to  his  Saints;  it  is  relative  when  offered 
directly  to  objects  that  have  some  special  relation  to  God  and 
to  His  Saints,  and  only  indirectly  to  God  or  the  Saints.  This 
relative  homage,  however,  is  paid  to  these  objects  merely 
because  of  their  relation  to  the  person,  and  it  is  proportionate 
to  the  closeness  of  this  relation,  for  homage  is  essentially 
the  honor  offered  a  person. 

With  these  few  notions  in  mind,  we  may  now  give  the 
doctrine  of  the  worship  of  Christ  the  Redeemer.  Christ's 
humanity,  hypostatically  united  to  the  Word  of  God,  is 
whorthy  of  the  homage  of  adoration,  whether  we  consider 
this  humanity  in  its  entirety  or  only  in  its  Sacred  heart. 
The  worship  of  the  True  Cross,  as  well  as  that  of  Images  of 
the  Cross,  is  wholly  legitimate. 

1.  TUOMASSIK,  Dogmata  Iheologica,  1.  XI,  ch.  u. 


366  GOD. 

Christ's  Humanity  Hypo  statically  United  to  the  We  .. 
of  God  is  Worthy  of  the  Homage  of  Adoration.  -  -  Worship 
is  honor  offered  a  person  either  directly  or  indirectly,  ac- 
cording to  whether  it  is  question  of  absolute  or  of  relative 
worship.  The  person  is  the  ultimate  subject  to  which  the 
nature  of  an  individual  and  the  operations  performed  by 
him,  are  related.  Hence,  it  is  the  subject  to  which  we 
must  ascribe  the  merit  of  the  demerit  of  actions,  the  honor 
or  the  dishonor  resulting,  and  the  opprobrium  or  the  homage 
due.  Now,  Christ  is  the  Word  made  flesh.  Hence,  the 
homage  due  to  Christ  is  the  same  as  that  due  to  the  Word; 
and  this  is  the  homage  of  adoration. 

Quite  evidently,  this  homage,  to  be  legitimate,  must  be 
offered  to  Christ's  humanity  not  in  an  abstract  manner  but 
in  a  concrete  manner;  that  is,  as  hypostatically  united  to  the 
Word*. 

Though  this  would  be  enough  to  show  the  legitimate 
character  of  the  worship  of  Christ's  humanity,  we  may  add 
some  positive  arguments.  It  is  said  in  St.  John  that  we 
must  offer  Christ  the  same  honor  as  we  offer  God  the 
Father2;  and  in  St.  Paul,  that,  after  the  Resurrection, 
Christ  received  a  name  at  which  every  knee  should  bend3. 

The  heretics  of  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries,  who  hold 
that  Christ  was  a  person  apart  from  the  Word,  or  that  in 
Him  there  was  a  sort  of  mixture  of  the  human  and  the  divine, 
went  astray  also  in  the  worship  that  they  gave  Christ.  They 
were  condemned  precisely  on  this  point  by  the  second 
council  of  Constantinople,  which  anathematized  all  who 
said  that  we  were  not  to  worship  in  one  and  the  same 
adoration  the  Word  made  flesh4.  Hence,  it  is  wrong  to 
hold  with  the  Jansenistic  synod  of  Pistoria,  whose  doctrine 


1.  THOMA.SSIN,  Dogmata  theologica,  1.  XI,  ch.  ii-iii. 

2.  JOHN,  v,  23;  XH,  24;  XIV,  21-23. 

3.  Philipp.,  n,  9-11. 

4.  DENZ.,  221. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  367 

was  condemned  by  Pius  VI ',  that  to  pay  directly  to  the 
humanity  of  Christ,  or  to  any  part  of  that  humanity,  the 
worship  of  adoration,  is  to  render  divine  homage  to  a  mere 
creature. 

The  Heart  of  Jesus,  Being  Hypostatically  United  to 
the  Word,  Deserves  the  Worship  of  Adoration.  -  -  This  doc- 
trine is  dogmatically  defined  by  the  condemnation  of  the 
Jansenist  council  of  Pistoria,  which  censured  those  who 
favored  the  worship  of  the  Sacred  Heart  on  the  plea  that 
they  were  paying  a  homage  of  adoration  to  the  human  heart 
of  Christ  apart  from  his  divinity2.  It  may  also  be  regarded 
as  a  logical  conclusion  of  the  argument  for  the  worship  of 
Christ's  humanity  in  its  entirety. 

In  fact,  worship  is  the  honor  given  a  person  directly  or 
indirectly.  Whether  we  consider  Christ's  humanity  in  its 
integrity  or  only  the  heart;  whether  it  be  question  of  the 
love  of  which  the  heart  is  regarded  as  a  symbol,  or  of  the 
heart  itself,  this  humanity  does  not  belong  to  any  person 
except  to  the  Person  of  the  Word.  Consequently  the 
worship  that  we  owe  to  this  humanity,  whether  in  whole 
or  in  part,  is  the  same  as  that  we  owe  to  the  Person  of  the 
Word.  And  the  homage  that  we  owe  to  the  Person  of  the 
Word  is  the  homage  of  adoration. 

This  argument  obtains  not  only  Tor  the  worship  of  the 
Sacred  Heart  but  also  for  the  worship  of  the  Precious  blood, 
of  the  Savior's  Wounds,  and  of  His  whole  Passion.  Let  us 
remark,  however,  that  howsoever  legitimate  these  devotions 
may  be  in  themselves,  they  should  first  receive  the  special 


1.  ., 

2.  DENZ.,  15G3.    When  the  faithful  pay  homage  to  the  heart  of  Jesus,  they 
do  not  isolate  His  heart  from  His  divinity;  they  adore  the  heart  of  the  Person  of 
the  Word  to  whom  it  is  inseparably  united...    illud  (cor)  adorant  ut  ext  cor 
Jesu,  cor  nempe  personae  Verbi,  cui  inseparabilitcr  unitum  est,  ad  eum 
modum,  quo  exsangue  corpus   Christi  in  (riduo  mortis   sine  separation? 
aut  praecisione  a  divinilate,  adorabile  fuit  in  sepulchro. 


363  GOD. 

approbation  of  the  Church,  before  being1  made  public.  No 
public  devotion  should  be  held  without  receiving  this 
special  approbation. 

The  Proper  Object  of  the  Devotion  to  the  Sacred  Heart.  — 
The  devotion  to  the  Sacred  Heart  has  for  its  object  the 
heart  of  flesh  of  the  Man-God.  But  it  does  not  stop  at  the 
adoration  of  the  material  heart  whose  pulsing  sent  the 
precious  blood  through  the  Lord's  body.  Its  object  is  above 
all  the  love  of  Christ,  of  which  the  material  heart  is  the 
symbol.  «  The  object  of  this  devotion  »,  says  the  Blessed 
Margaret  Mary,  «  is  the  love  of  Christ  under  the  symbol  of 
His  human  heart  ».  This  was  the  doctrine  that  was  taught 
with  perfect  clearness  the  moment  the  worship  was  officially 
recognized.  «  There  exists  a  confusion  in  more  than  one 
mind  »,  says  the  Answer  to  the  Exceptions  of  the  Promoter 
of  the  Faith;  «  they  look  at  the  proper  object  of  the  feast  of 
the  Heart  of  Jesus  in  a  purely  material  way...  as  they 
would  the  relic  of  a  Saint,  kept  religiously  in  a  reliquary. 
This  is  a  grave  mistake.  We  must  not  regard  the  feast  of 
the  Sacred  Heart  in  this  way.  How,  then,  is  it  to  be 
regarded?  This  we  shall  answer  in  a  few  articles.  We 
must  look  upon  the  Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus  : 

«  i°  As  being  one  (because  of  the  close  union)  with  His 
soul  and  His  divine  Person. 

«  2°  As  the  symbol  or  the  natural  seat  of  all  His  in- 
terior sentiments,  and,  in  particular,  of  the  vast  love  He  enter- 
tains for  His  heavenly  Father  and  for  all  men. 

«  3°  As  the  center  of  all  the  inward  pain  that  our  Savior 
suffered  all  during  His  life,  and  especially  during  His  Passion. 

«  4°  Nor  must  we  forget  the  wound  inflicted  in  His  heart 
while  on  the  cross.  This  was  caused  not  so  much  by  the 
soldier's  lance  as  by  the  love  that  Jesus  bore  us. 

«  All  this  is  proper  to  the  Heart  of  Jesus,  all  this  unites 
with  the  heart  itself  in  making  it  the  object  of  the  feast.  It 
follows,  therefore,  —  and  this  is  a  point  quite  worthy  of 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  369 

consideration  —  that  this  object,  so  understood,  truly  em- 
braces the  inmost  soul  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ1.  » 

We  sometimes  hear  the  objection  that  the  heart  is  not 
the  seat  of  the  affections,  and  that  experiments  go  to  show 
that  the  source  of  affective  sentiments  is  the  brain.  This 
physiological  problem  in  no  way  concerns  the  question  of 
our  devotion.  The  Church  did  not  establish  this  doctrine 
on  a  physiological  basis,  but  upon  the  universally  accepted 
fact  that  the  heart  is  regarded  as  the  symbol  and  the 
emblem  of  love2. 

And  this  comes  from  the  fact  that  the  heart  is  at  least 
the  organ  that  manifests  love.  All  passions,  in  any  way 
strong,  are  accompanied  by  physical  disturbance  in  the  heart. 
The  emotion  of  love  grips  and  controls  it,  either  hastening 
or  retarding  its  pulsations.  Hence,  the  heart  of  Christ  is 
looked  upon  as  the  symbol  of  love,  in  this  devotion. 

There  is  still  another  question.  What  love  of  Jesus  is 
this  that  we  consider  in  the  devotion  to  the  Sacred  Heart? 
The  question  has  received  but  little  attention  from  theo- 
logians3. If  we  examine  the  texts  authorizing  the  devotion, 
and  take  into  account  the  popular  trend  of  the  devotion,  we 
must  say,  it  would  seem,  that  the  devotion  to  the  Sacred  Heart 


1.  Memoriale,  17,  18;  NILES,  pp.  145-146. 

2.  In  a  beautiful  treatise  entitled  Devotion  au  Sacrt-Cceur  de  Msus,  part  II, 
ch.  n,  pp.  175-177,  Bainvel  gives  an  account  of  what  took  place  in  1726,  wben) 
Father  de  Galliffet  asked  for  the  establishment  of  the  feast.    He  had  the  impru- 
dence to  make  his  petition  on  the  plea  that  the  heart  is  the  organ  of  love.    The 
Promoter  of  the  Faith,  Prosper  Lambertini,  later  Pope  Benedict  XIV,  although 
personally  in  favor  of  the  cause,  conscientiously  urged  his  objections  against  it 
as  a  advocatus  diaboli  ».     He  observed  that  the  postulator  assumed  as  a  fact  that 
the   heart  is,  as  was  commonly  said,  the  sensible  co-principle  of  the  virtues 
and  the  affections,  and  the  seat  of  all  our  joys  and  sorrows.    And  he  pointed  out 
that  there  was  concerned  here  a  philosophical  problem,  since  modern   philoso- 
phers placed  love,  hate,  and  the  other  affections  of  the  soul,  not  in  the  heart,  as 
the  seat,  but  in  the  brain.    Hence  the  feast  was  not  authorized.    When  the 
request  was  renewed,  under  Clement  XIII,  in  1765,  the  plea  then  urged  was  that 
the  heart  is  the  symbol  of  love.    This  time  authorization  was  granted. 

3.  See  the  excellent  essay  of  BAINVBL,  op.  laud.,  part  II,  ch.  i,  pp.  161-165. 
T.  i.  24 


370  GOD. 

has  for  its  object  the  material  heart  of  our  Lord,  regarded  as 
the  symbol  of  His  human  love,  this  human  love  itself  being- 
inspired  by  the  love  of  the  divine  Word.  Or,  to  put  it  more 
simply,  the  object  of  this  devotion  is  the  material  heart  of 
Jesus  regarded  as  the  symbol  of  the  love  of  the  Incarnate 
Word.  Yet,  we  would  put  in  the  first  place  the  human  love 
of  our  Savior,  and  in  the  second  the  love  of  the  divine  Word. 
And  without  excluding  the  love  of  the  divine  Word  for  His 
Father,  we  should  be  inclined  to  consider  it  as  above  all  the 
love  of  the  Incarnate  Word  for  men1. 

The  Worship  of  the  True  Cross,  as  well  as  That  of  the 
Image  of  the  Cross,  is  a  Wholly  Legitimate  Devotion.  --  The 
homage  offered  to  Christ's  humanity,  whether  in  its  integrity 
or  in  its  component  parts,  as,  for  example,  in  His  heart,  is  an 
absolute  worship,  because  it  is  paid  to  Christ's  humanity 
conjointly  with  the  Person  of  the  Word.  Such  is  not  the 
case  with  the  worship  of  the  relics  of  the  Passion  of  Christ, 
for  example,  the  worship  of  the  True  Cross.  The  latter  is 
but  a  relative  worship ;  it  is  a  homage  offered  to  the  Cross 
directly  and  to  the  Person  of  Christ  indirectly. 

Yet,  since  the  true  cross  derives  its  excellence  from  the 
Person  of  Christ,  this  relative  worship  of  the  true  cross  must 
be  a  homage  of  relative  adoration. 

Equally  worthy  of  this  worship  are  the  images  and  repro- 
ductions of  the  true  cross;  but  in  a  lesser  degree,  for  these 
have  but  a  figurative  relation  to  the  Passion  of  Christ.  In  a 
word,  these  objects  are  but  sensible  stimuli,  which  the 
Church  uses  to  excite  devotion  in  the  hearts  of  the  faithful. 


1.  The  feaslof  the  Sacred  Heart,  instituted  by  Clement  XIII,  in  1765,  was 
eitended  to  the  whole  Church  by  Pius  IX,  in  1856.  In  1875,  the  same  Pope  in- 
vited the  faithful  all  over  the  world  to  consecrate  themselves  to  the  Sacred 
Heart.  In  1890,  Pope  Leo  XIII  raised  the  feast  to  the  rank  of  a  double  of  the 
first  class ;  and  in  1900,  he  consecrated  to  the  Sacred  Heart  the  whole  human 
race. 


CHRIST  THE  REDEEMER.  371 

And  because  of  their  figurative  value,  these  objects  may  be 
used  in  worship  only  when  they  are  in  good  condition.  But 
the  cross,  as  well  as  the  other  objects  of  our  Savior's  Passion, 
since  it  has  more  than  a  merely  figurative  value,  deserves  the 
same  worship  whether  it  is  whole  and  intact  or  only  in  frag- 
ments. 


CONCLUSION 


The  eternal  Word  of  the  Father  took  to  Himself  a  human 
nature  perfect  in  the  order  of  natural  and  of  supernatural 
goods.  He  did  this  in  order  to  work  out  the  salvation  of  the 
human  race.  Such  is  the  dogma  of  the  Redemption. 

To  attain  this  end,  the  divine  Word  had  so  to  unite  this 
nature  to  Himself  as  to  make  it  the  human  nature  of  the  Word. 
In  this  way  the  operations  performed  by  and  in  this  human 
nature  acquired  an  infinite  value,  on  account  of  their  re- 
lation to  the  Person  of  the  Word.  This  is  the  dogma  of  the 
Incarnation. 

These  two  dogmas  enable  us  to  outline  the  moral  por- 
trait of  our  Lord.  The  Incarnation  couldnot  have  taken  place 
unless  the  human  nature  of  Christ  had  been  deprived  of  what 
would  render  it  incommunicable  to  the  eternal  Word;  i.  e., 
of  that  which  rendered  it  so  distinct  from  all  other  natures 
as  to  make  it  altogether  unsusceptible  of  union  with  any  other 
nature,  or  even  with  the  divine  Word  of  God.  What  renders 
human  nature  so  entirely  distinct  from  all  other  natures  is 
what  is  called  the  constitutive  element  of  personality. 
Hence,  we  hold  that  in  Christ  human  nature  was  actually 
deprived  of  its  own  personality,  and  had  no  other  personality 
but  that  of  the  Word. 

But,  while  the  Incarnation  required  that  the  human 
nature  of  Christ  be  stripped  of  its  own  personality,  the 


374  GOD. 

Redemption  required  that  this  humanity  be  perfect  in  the 
order  of  natural  and  supernatural  goods  that,  through  it  and 
in  it,  the  Word  of  God  might  become  the  victim  for  the  expi- 
ation of  the  sins  of  the  world  and  the  restorer  of  the  kingdom 
of  God.  The  Redemption  likewise  required  that  the  human 
nature  of  Christ,  elevated  by  grace,  be  a  distinct  nature  not 
only  as  a  nature  but  as  the  source  of  voluntary  and  intel- 
lectual operations  as  well. 

If  Christ  was  such  as  we  have  represented  Him,  it  seems 
that,  in  the  constitution  of  His  being,  he  was  lacking  not  in 
hypostatic  unity,  but  in  the  unity  of  activity.  The  human 
activity  of  Christ  was,  no  doubt,  in  perfect  conformity  with 
the  activity  of  the  Word  of  God;  and  this  constitutes  the 
moral  unity  of  Christ.  But  we  must  never  say  that  the  divine 
activity  so  far  permeated  the  human  as  to  absorb  it,  or  that 
the  human  activity  absorbed  the  divine.  It  is  impossible, 
then,  to  identify  in  any  way  Christ's  human  activity  and  His 
divine  activity.  So  far  is  the  Church  from  anything  ap- 
proaching such  a  view,  that  she  has  condemned  this  opinion 
under  the  names  of  Docetism,  of  Monophysism,  and  of  Mono- 
thelism.  The  correct  conclusion,  therefore,  is  that  there  are 
in  Christ  two  activities  working  in  perfect  harmony,  but  on 
parallel  planes. 

This  conclusion  we  must  accept;  it  is  a  dogma  of  faith. 
We  must  bear  in  mind,  however,  that  there  attaches  to  this 
none  of  the  psychological  consequences  that  might  be  sap- 
posed.  True,  there  have  always  been  some  who  endeavored 
to  show  that,  in  Christ,  the  Word  of  God  restricted  His  human 
nature.  But,  while  this  tendency  may  be  natural  to  the 
human  mind,  we  must  not  forget  that  such  a  thing  would  be 
contrary  to  the  general  economy  of  the  Incarnation.  The 
chief  object  in  Christ's  becoming  man  was  not  the  assumption 
of  human  nature,  but  rather  the  accomplishment,  in  this 
nature  and  through  it,  of  the  totality  of  works  necessary  to 
the  salvation  of  man.  The  activity  that  constituted  the  life 
of  Christ  was,  then,  above  all  a  human  activity,  elevated  by 


CONCLUSION.  375 

grace.  The  Word  became  man  in  order  to  act  in  a  human 
manner.  Had  He  wished  to  act  solely  in  a  divine  manner, 
there  had  been  no  need  of  His  becoming1  man.  Far  from 
its  being  astonishing,  then,  to  think  that  Christ's  absolute 
divinity  appears  so  little  in  His  earthly  works,  it  ought  rather 
be  a  subject  of  surprise  to  think  that  it  so  persistently  crops 
up  at  every  turn,  as  we  see,  for  example,  in  the  apocryphal 
Gospels.  Christ  became  man  to  exist  and  act  in  and  through 
His  humanity,  somewhat  as  a  prince  might  adopt  the  religious 
garb  in  order  to  cloister  Himself  in  monastic  life  and  live 
a  life  of  obedience  and  self  denial.  If  such  a  prince,  after 
taking  a  step  of  this  kind,  were  to  keep  on  living  in  princely 
state,  we  should  be  rather  surprised.  So  it  would  be  with 
Christ  if,  after  having  taken  our  humanity  in  order  to  act 
after  the  manner  of  man,  He  were  to  continue  to  act  solely 
after  the  manner  of  God. 

The  divine  activity  of  the  Savior  does,  however,  appear 
here  and  there.  We  find  Him  doing  works  that  are  alto- 
gether beyond  the  powers  of  any  created  agents,  works  that 
are  divine  in  the  most  absolute  manner.  Such,  for  example, 
were  His  great  miracles.  These  are  works  that  can  proclaim 
but  one  thing  to  the  simple  observer;  viz.,  that  God  acted 
through  Christ.  But  he  that  believes,  on  the  authority  of  the 
Savior's  own  testimony,  that  Jesus  was  God  made  man,  will 
regard  such  works  as  the  manifestation  of  the  Christ  God. 

On  pushing  our  inquiry  further,  we  investigated  how 
the  human  intellect  of  the  Savior  knew  the  Word  of  God 
with  whom  it  was  united  and  how  it  knew  all  things  else. 

Now,  the  result  of  our  work  showed  that,  from  the 
beginning,  Christ's  human  soul  saw,  by  the  knowledge  of 
vision,  the  Word  to  whom  it  was  hypostatically  united,  the 
Holy  Ghost  who  poured  out  upon  this  intellect  its  light 
and  grace,  and  the  Father,  the  principle  of  the  Word  and 
of  the  Holy  Ghost.  In  God,  His  intellect  saw  all  creatures, 
past,  present,  and  future.  By  infused  knowledge,  the 
Savior's  soul  knew,  from  the  beginning,  all  that  man  could 


376  GOD. 

learn  by  relevation;  and  it  was  particularly  enlightened  on 
the  whole  supernatural  economy  connected  witht  the  work 
of  the  Redemption.  Yet,  this  knowledge  existed  only  in  a 
state  of  hahit;  it  was  actually  present  in  the  Savior's  intellect, 
now  under  one  aspect,  now  under  another,  as  He  willed  it. 
There  is  nothing  surprising  in  the  fact  that  Christ's  human 
soul  had  a  knowledge  of  this  kind  from  the  beginning;  for 
it  was  exercised  independently  of  organic  conditions,  solely 
by  His  human  intellect  flooded  with  light  both  preternatural 
and  supernatural. 

Furthermore,  by  the  exercise  of  His  intellect,  Christ 
learned  all  that  any  man  of  the  time  might  learn.  But,  at 
whatever  period  of  His  life  we  choose  to  consider  Him ,  He 
always  knew  perfectly  whatever  it  was  fit  and  proper  for 
Him  to  know. 

Thus  Christ  was  and  is,  for  ever  true  God  and  true  man. 
His  humanity  was  clothed  with  all  possible  perfections,  except 
that  of  human  personality  and  those  of  exemption  from  death 
and  suffering.  Human  personality  was  incompatible  with 
hypostatic  union;  exemption  from  death  and  suffering  were 
incompatible  with  the  object  of  the  Incarnation. 


BX 


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